Flying & Fighting the Fulcrum with "Spanky" (ep. 159) 

This is the best fighter pilot interview I have heard. Hats off to you Spankey, your the best.

Excellent ! Thank you ! Spanky has an amazing background. He's got an easy going, modest self effacing way about him, extreamly intelligent, and I bet he's a very, very formidable adversary, in the air.

Man, at 500 hours he probably has more hours than most pilots in the MiG29 who were from countries who actually operate(d) the dang thing. Great interview! Thanks!

Awesome interview! I loved that episode, the Mig-29 is one of my favorite planes. Greetings from Montreal. I fell in love with podcast when i discovered it a few months ago and i'm listening to all the episodes one by one since and introducing it to my friends that are into aviation like me. Keep up the good work!

Couldn't help but chuckle at the comment about shooting down balloons and V1's in earlier wars and "I guess a kills a kill" with what's been going on the last little while.

Finally, finally, finally, finally! Jell-O you have answered my prayers and interviewed Spanky! Ever since I read an old interview with him I have wanted to hear more. Aircrew Interview had a German pilot on and he said the MiG-29 eval really got professional once Spanky came along. Now I have to watch this interview...

@FighterPilotPodcast Can't believe I just found your stuff. Really fantastic to hear the professional stick and rudder guys talk. All you guys are bad ass!

what a great interview. Thanks!

Great interview as usual! I stayed up until almost midnight to listen to the video because it was so informative! Thank you!

I love the new format and great guest!

Love it! And totally agree, the content trumps any concerns about video or audio quality. When the discussion is good, it's good.

Absolutely great interview. Keep up the good work! :)

The first Fulcrum to come to NA was in August 1989. It came for the Abbotsford Airshow in Canada. They brought a -29 plus a -29UB. The demo was flown by Anatoly Kvochur, who had a low level ejection at Paris about 4 months before. Hell of a display and their support a/c was the An-225 Mira. On the Sunday, Captain Bob Wade RCAF became the first western pilot to fly the MiG-UB. I wuz there....and it was a hoot of a w/e!!

Great interview and video! Love how you've added additional info in the form of extra footage and overlays :)

Great interview, very interesting. Thanks!

This is fantastic Jello and Spanky. I really like the video format now.

Cheers mate.. good stuff.. righteous.

Can't wait to hear about the MiG-29; hope to hear comparisons between the Fulcrum and the F-16!

AMAZING ! So much experience!

Excellent!

Wow! What a great interview! Subbed!

Boy I love this podcast. Enjoying the pivot to video!!

Awesome episode gentleman. ❤

It's a pity the AIM-97 Agile didn't make it to production. Atleast VTAS aka the first in-service helmet mounted sight, made it to a few F-4S squadrons. 2 amazing systems we had in the 1970's we missed the boat on.

Thanks, this was great.

Been in the Valley some 25 years so could relate to his early stories. And great podcast overall 👍🏻

That was so good! Thank you Jello

That was a great interview Jello

An Awesome Interview about one of the sexiest jets ever, great Banter, and the intro music kicks ass! What more can I say?

Great video Mooch!!

1986 - Some Russian aircraft had come to the Abbotsford International Airshow. I was working as aircraft sheet metal worker working on the Challenger Biz jet. I was wandering the ramp at the show and noticed a Mig -29 sitting by itself, no ropes, no guards, nothing. I walked over and had a close look, stuck my head up in the wheel well, looked into all the open panels. The workmanship on the plane would have gotten me fired. Under driven rivets, over driven rivets, lumpy skins. It was ugly up close.

I like how Spanky said " The 29 is like a Hornet on steroids." It will be interesting to see what the Fulcrum has done in this new conflict in Europe.

I was at the Paris Air Show the day after that time when poor Russian guy had to eject from his Fulcrum during his demo. IIRC they didn't sell many of them that year :)

Good to see you, Fred. Pete Ochabauer

Hey another DLAB test taker, LOL! I love hearing someone else’s experience with it. Proud Army Signals Intelligence Specialist here!

All those 29's from Laage AFB Spanky was flying are now in Malbork 22nd AFB Poland in Polish Air Force. We took them from Luftwaffe :)

Awesome episode! But of all the guests to forget the callsign discussion!! 😁

"The Mig-29 and Su-27 Ejection Seat Demonstration Team" :D :D :D

The most striking thing I learned from his article was that the USAF didn't retain him as an Aggressor pilot at Nellis, if it's the same guy I'm remembering. Major lost opportunity on talent management.

There is an RCAF hornet pilot whose resume is very Similar to this guy and has the same call sign ,he recently retired as Lockheed's senior F35 test pilot.

How did he get Call sign? Great video.

I've saw Kirlin's MIGs a 100x sitting parked between the hangers and never had a clue they had engines in them. I saw a small foreign fighter plane flying around above the airport area east of Quincy in 2013 and believe it was the same jet that filmed Spanky in the first flight of the MIG 29 in 2010.

Remeber the good ol' days of "smear the Queer" :) That was awesome )

@fighter pilot podcast Thanks I loved this… I have beyond excellent hearing but have a condition that makes it hard to understand what people are saying (I have to use subtitles). For example I had the hardest time in flight school talking to the tower with the cheap headsets they had in the training Cessnas. Which bring me to this: I used to do web production and webinars for Fortune 500 companies. Next time you do one of these have both computers record the mic audio to the drives. Then your archive can use the higher quality audio. I actually always recorded the audio and video and then after the event depending on what company hired me I’d either send them the high fidelity copy or I’d upload it to whatever platform. We’d replace the live show with the higher quality audio and video so people who watched it later could have a better experience. Technically we could have ran HD and 128K audio but we never ever did unless it was live to RU-vid. We always used a low bitrate 480 and 240 feed with 64k stereo on the 480 and 32k mono on the 240 feed. So obviously not the greatest quality. We’d always go back and upgrade the quality afterwards though. Once you learn how to set it up if you need to help a guest setup the recoding on their machine use a free Remote Desktop program that works by sending a link (so you don’t have to worry about IP addresses, port forwarding, and firewalls). I used TeamViewer but I had a license. I’m not sure if you’d be breaking any laws by using the free version for this. I guess if you are considered a business or you are profiting then you shouldn’t use TeamViewer but there are legitimate free options out there besides TeamViewer. If you end up using Remote Desktop a lot then the license for TeamViewer might make sense. Anyways, While I really struggled to understand your guest I did love the show! This was the first time I saw anything from you. RU-vid recommended me to you probably because I had just got done watching a Ward Carrol show. Oh one other tip… if you are going to do what I’m suggesting then do hand claps at the beginning so you can sync the audio to the video easily.

Great interview. Maverick just saw Mig28. & guest didn't say his callsign.

Yes this is something I have wanted to learn about. After a few years the Luftwaffe transferred them to Poland . I wonder if that was bittersweet for the German pilots or was it like “ don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya”

It was very strange to hear the disappointment for the M2000. Most probably, younger, less experienced pilots in there

I wish he would talk more about fighting the f14

I'm trying to remember where I read it (possibly "Fulcrum" by Alexander Zuyev, or possibly it's just from a Tom Clancy novel), but supposedly the front of the plane was built well by skilled labor, but further aft where it "didn't matter as much" they were built by high school grads with no other training. Citation Needed ;)

50:00 I would love to have heard Spanky say what scenario culminated in his “thinking about” bailing out of an F-16.

Spanky, you have a basement ?????? In Vegas???? Super rare. Jealous. If a tornado rolls thru I'm heading your way. LOL

I think the Indian Air Force (IAF) MiG-29s are very heavily modified. I do not think they can be compared to any other MiG-29 out there. So too the MiG-29K of the Indian Navy.

I fly MiGs 29 in Poland, is possible i fly the same MiGs, because some of these German MiGs come to my squadron, most of come to another because my have some MiGs from USSR and Slovakia. As for ejection seats, we have problems with them, tragically one of the pilots was killed because of faulty ejection :-( .

German MiG29's had restricted engines with reduced thrust. The original MiG29's had a better T/W ratio.

for being in a basement, that is a real looking window behind him

Тhat bombing in Fulcrum description is strange. It should have had CCIP and CCRP.

40:06, we flew the N against the A. No chance, not even close.

37:55 He sounds like what I imagine of a Marine pilot,,, 😆

Men! MEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNN!!

Questions for either one of you; how long do you think it will realistically take for Ukrainian Mig29 pilots to transition to the F16?

This is a great interview, but Fred’s audio cuts out so much he’s sometimes hard to follow and I’m hanging on every word.

Seems like American airpower was all built in response to the Mig-15 after that there was a drive to always beat the Soviets.

Spanky? I think we had better not know....

As a Pole, I'm wondering if any of the 29s from Luftwaffe we got for 1 euro a piece will finally end up in Ukraine.

Interesting interview . In the Ukraine Russian war it seems the sky belongs to the ground based inexpensive missiles S-300 which are now very good and of course cheap drones . These missiles have effectively created a no fly zone for fighters .Both sides now appear to be holding back their very expensive jet fighters and fighter pilots . Also this war is the first modern war since WW2 and how did the Russians deal with superior airpower and artillery of the Germans at Stalingrad ? Answer they "hugged the enemy" in close quarter ground fighting so that the Germans could not use their planes and artillery . This is what we beginning to see..trench warfare attrition like WW1 on the Somme and Verdun where trench lines can only be broken by tank charges and ..er gas

It would be awesome to challenge these legendary guys on DCS just to see what they're made of. It would be Epic.

A question popped into my peabrain. There have been discussions about how long it would take Ukrainian pilots to transition to our or European planes. Sounds like Spanky transitioned very quickly to the Russian gear. What time would it take to transition the Ukrainians??????

This is the fighter pilot podcast yet in the intro you have a bomber and helicopter. What gives lol? I do love the B-1 just as much as the next guy, it's beautiful but it's not a fighter despite the oxygen mask, joystick and T-38 track to fly it.

Actually, there are about 6 HUD kill videos with guns of a USN Black Aces F-14A vs Luftwaffe MIG-29s in the Fighter Fling videos. While MIG-29 had better thrust to weight than the F-14A, the Tomcat pilots knew they had a better two circle rate fight so that is what they used to win the fight. I also did not get the big and heavy comment for the GE-F110 powered F-14. Yes, it was big (not bigger than the F-15) and heavier than the other teen fighters, but the B/D made WAY more thrust than the other teen fighters with a combined thrust of 60,000 lbf peak at sea level. In light configuration (not fleet defense configuration), F-14 B/D had a much better than 1:1 thrust to weight that could rocket up from 200 knots in full afterburner and flaps down in the vertical as high as the pilot wanted to.

Pax River = Tiki Bar Solomon's Island

The Ukrainians should have changed those kills stats by now

Shlem

Language barrier with danish pilots? Every single danish person I’ve ever met, has spoken English impeccably daresay better than most Americans. I highly doubt there’s a language barrier.

The Russian Spanky,, guy. A Ru Colonel, his era, our era. Was killed on mission. In UK. 2022. Died doing what he liked.

It still shows some. Lack of training in the Russian side in single profile colom first you hit the front viechle then the last viechle then eat them one by one..... For some unknown reason he chose the center one.... I was expecting to see +12 wrecks 1 per missile + canon Forder wrecks ... the target were so venerable

If President Zelensky calls "Spanky" there is chance "Spanky" could fly same MiGs he was flying long time ago. Looks like former German MiG-29 from Polish Air force will be soon wearing Ukrainian colours. ;P

Trash talking about my beloved aircraft ain't gonna get you like from me this time

I love living in St Louis. Best kept secret for great fun and diverse interests. If you don’t like St Louis, Don’t come here. We won’t miss you. I stopped watching here

Using the East German Air Force as a benchmark of Fulcrum usage is sort of unfair. Poorly funded & low on morale, that Air Force was just low on quality. Whereas, the Indian Air Force who’s been using the Fulcrum for over 25 years, has great experience & kicks ass on every exercise they do. Including the Singaporean Air Force’s F16s.

NOT a big fan, of the Russians, or their second rate jets, these days, just say'n,