
What does modern war actually look like from the eyes of a fighter pilot? In this Digital Social Hour Episode, Sean Kelly sits down with Ryan Bodenheimer from Max Afterburner USA to talk about fighter jets, the Thunderbirds, Iran, Israel, drones, nuclear threats, military strategy, combat decision-making, and the mindset required to operate under pressure. Ryan breaks down how his experience as a fighter pilot shaped the way he thinks about entrepreneurship, discipline, personal sovereignty, and staying calm when things go wrong. He also explains what it was like flying with the Thunderbirds, meeting major public figures, and seeing the military from the inside. The conversation covers the Iran-Israel conflict, ballistic missiles, nuclear facilities, drones, B-2 bombers, underground bunkers, fighter pilot training, military-industrial incentives, the reality of losing friends in aviation, faith, nervous system regulation, cold exposure, and whether AI could eventually replace el...
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Sean Kelly
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Sean Kelly
I'm always trying to get the best outcome for the best price. So it's kind of crazy. I haven't looked at my life insurance in years. I don't even know if what I'm paying is competitive or if I have enough coverage with how things have changed. That's why I started Looking into Select Quote for over 40 years they've helped more than 2 million Americans secure over $700 billion in coverage. Their whole model is simple. They shop around to find you the right policy for your specific needs so you're not Overpaying or undercovered, their licensed agents work for you in as little as 15 minutes. They compare policies from top rated carriers to find something that fits your health and your budget. And they do it for free. No medical exam, no problem. You could get same day coverage up to $2 million. And if you've got pre existing conditions, they've got options for that too. Get the right life insurance for you for less and Save more than 50%@SelectQuote.com DSH Save more than 50% on term life insurance@SelectQuote.com DSH Today to get started, that's SelectQuote.com DSH Rescued a weapon systems
Ryan
officer against all odds. This guy was evading Iranian enemy forces for 40 hours and we went in and got him. And what I've seen so far is we actually had to eliminate like Navy Seals, high level para rescue, these special forces to eliminate 100 plus IRGC commandos trying to kill our guy. Cuz right now it's, it's really popular to say everything's Israel's fault. That's what I see in the news. I'm like wait, so it's raining today, so it's Israel's fault? The way that I've studied what Iran's plans have been, they wanted to have 10,000 ballistic missiles that could then protect a nuclear weapon. So then that nuclear weapon couldn't be destroyed.
Interviewer
Okay, guys, got Ryan on the show today. Saw him on a, a fun interview on Pierce. Interview slash debate, right?
Ryan
Yeah, yeah, a little bit of a debate.
Interviewer
Yeah. And now he's here in Las Vegas. Had some wi Fi issues today. Dude is wild.
Ryan
It's like the entrepreneur life, right?
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
Ryan
Gotta make it happen no matter what.
Interviewer
I've been talking about this on a few episodes recently about the electrical grid and how the power just keeps going up and up. Interesting how there's, I'm looking into generators right now.
Ryan
Yeah, good to have a backup. I mean that's smart.
Interviewer
Yeah, a lot of brownouts and especially in Cali and blackouts and seems like it's only going to get worse.
Ryan
Yeah, being prepared is huge. Yeah, I mean the entrepreneur life, no one's going to do it for you. So power goes out, you still want to run your show or you know, provide for your family or whatever the case is, you got to make it happen.
Interviewer
How's that transition been from you from pilot to entrepreneur?
Ryan
It's been really good. It's been one where I use the same skills. I feel like in some ways like as a pilot, you're kind of out there alone and unafraid sometimes where they're like, hey, in combat, too, you're the judge, jury and executioner, where you might not be able to talk to higher headquarters. So you got to make a decision. So to me that it's like a personal sovereignty thing that I've taken from, that I use it in my own life, you know, my relationships, protecting my family. And then I do it with my business, too.
Interviewer
Nice.
Ryan
Or like this morning, I think I was just telling you, you know, WI fi was out. I needed to upload a video. We're doing a video pretty much every day. And so instead of sitting back and being like, oh, the WI fi is not working, I'm like, okay, I'm going
Interviewer
to make this happen.
Ryan
So I went to three different. Three different places, wound up at a bank. I'm in the back of a bank, sitting in a cubicle, acting like I'm like a manager there. You know, someone walks in, I'm like, hey, welcome. Welcome to the bank. Just make it happen, man. It's. It's. It's this attitude of be an athlete. That's probably how you've built a lot of your success, too.
Interviewer
I can relate to that so much because we film at a lot of conferences and events, and the WI fi is always an issue. Sometimes they'll say it's a day to upload an episode.
Ryan
Yeah. And it's like it's 2026 and we were solving WI FI issues. It's. The story was real.
Interviewer
It makes me want to get Starlink or something, honestly.
Ryan
Yeah. Starlink. And there's some places that outlaw Starlink because.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
Well, the businesses feel threatened by it. Oh. And so it's.
Interviewer
Wow.
Ryan
Kind of like. It's almost like some of these WI FI companies have become like the Mafia.
Interviewer
Yeah. They have monopolized, especially in Vegas. There's only one. It's called Cox. And it sucks. Like, it always crashes.
Ryan
Yeah. It probably has ties to old mafia where they're like, we are the only business in town proper Monopoly.
Interviewer
The Mafia used to be out here. The actual Mafia.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
Wouldn't surprise me.
Ryan
Yeah, we were just talking about that, how some of the mafia bosses actually, you know, kind of got brought into the fold to be made legit, and they took over and started running a lot of the gaming operations out here.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
Which is smart, right? I mean, at some point, if someone, you know, you can't get rid of every single mafia operator, you got to at some point see if they'll become legit And I think that's what happened in Vegas.
Interviewer
Some of them are good businessmen, to be honest. You know, if you ask locals here that have been here a while, do they prefer Vegas now or when the mob ran it? Most of them will say back then.
Ryan
Interesting.
Interviewer
Yeah, like 80%, dude.
Ryan
That's crazy. So I did a flyby of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway when I was on the Thunderbirds. Subtle. I got to drop the fact I'm a pilot.
Sean Kelly
Right.
Ryan
I got to drop that. But Boyd, he. He owns Boyd Gaming. The owner, the CEO, he showed up and it was like, I mean, he's a super cool guy, but you could tell he had some potentially, you know, allegedly some mafia connections.
Interviewer
What a surprise.
Sean Kelly
But he.
Interviewer
I've seen that name everywhere in Vegas. Board gaming.
Ryan
Yeah. I think he might have been a part of some of the original owners in Vegas, and then he's just turned it into a mega business empire, which is pretty inspiring in a way.
Interviewer
That's nuts. Yeah. As a pilot, I feel like you do meet some. Some cool people.
Ryan
Oh, yeah. Especially on the Thunderbirds. Like some wild situations, man, like flying over the Thunderbird or flying over the super bowl. And then afterwards, they kind of. They bring you up to show you around your champions. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a really special moment, but I got to meet, like, Dick Cheney, Have a story about that if you want to hear it. Kind of weird. Got to meet Tom Brady. I mean, just a lot of these, like, top level figures that I never expected I would meet. But, you know, they're pro America, pro military people that they're like, hey, the Thunderbirds just did a flyby. Bring them up.
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
Interviewer
It must be cool too, because you're kind of meeting them on a level playing field, like, they respect you.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
You're not like a fan.
Ryan
I think so.
Sean Kelly
Right.
Ryan
It's like game recognizes game, even though, like, as a. A Thunderbird pilot, it's different than, you know, their business moguls or, you know, political moguls. But I think just like you, right, you meet. You're crushing it in the podcast space. You meet people that are doing things big in other walks of life. I'm sure you can resonate with them
Interviewer
really well, the respects there because, you know, the work that goes into it, like you're dropping a video a day. I know how hard that is. I do the same. And it's. I noticed it's hard, you know, it's expensive. It's time consuming. You got to research.
Ryan
Yeah. Yeah. And you got to be on too.
Interviewer
Right.
Ryan
You got to like plan your whole night almost like to be ready and be on point when the interview comes.
Interviewer
100%. It's a full time thing. Yeah, yeah. The interview is just what people see. But there's a lot that goes into it behind the scenes, the editing. Yeah, but prepping all that stuff, how
Ryan
have you dealt with that, with personal life, like with you got a wife and.
Interviewer
Yeah, it's been a balance. So I used to work 16 hours a day, seven days a week when we first started dating. And that's not sustainable at all. Right. So I had to get through that phase, build up a safety net and now we're pretty solid. Like I work a little on weekends, couple hours here and there.
Ryan
Nice. Do you still drop videos on the weekends?
Interviewer
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you too?
Ryan
Yeah, I do. And kind of creating the team around me has helped me do that.
Interviewer
You've been crashing out your views. Have been. Has that been recent surgeons or were you kind of steadily growing over the year?
Ryan
You know, it's been like, it's, it's exploded over the last year. So I went full time about a year ago, kind of made that plunge and lately with current events, it's gone even higher. But right when I went full time and started doing more consistent videos, I definitely saw the rise.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
But lately, you know, with all the Iran war stuff.
Interviewer
Right.
Ryan
The naval blockade and all that, and I think people may be just wanting more understanding and ownership of the military. You know, I, I just noticed more of a desire for people to learn about it. And so I don't know, I don't know. I think it's just kind of that perfect sweet spot.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
I just happened to land during that perfect time.
Interviewer
Yeah. Cuz you had the experience to speak on, right?
Ryan
Yeah, Yeah. I got to do. You know, I was in the military for 12 years, flew F15E in combat, flew on the Thunderbirds. And I. The crazy thing about the Thunderbirds was I, I, Sean, I learned like war isn't just war, it's. It's also propaganda wars. So war takes place now on the Internet, Right. Takes place in the media, public opinion. Like there's so many things.
Interviewer
Informational war, right?
Ryan
Information. Yeah, information. There's a thing called IO information operations that the military does to, you know, shape conflicts. And you can see in with Iran, us, there is like rhetoric from both sides.
Interviewer
Right. I, I see some people saying we're losing the war. I see some people saying we're destroying them.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
Kind of don't even know what's going on, right?
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
Ryan
And so that's why I came in because I want to try to spread the truth the best I can. From what I see, just from being a military operator, being a fighter pilot and then being interested in geopolitics. So my last couple years in the combat side of the Air Force, I studied Iran and North Korea and I studied China and the Taiwan Straits. These like really like high level flashpoints that could happen around the globe. Right. And I studied a lot of those in classified vaults. But then there's things I learned that are unclassified, that I can share with the public. And so I kind of use, you know, the investigative acumen, I guess that I got from the military and I use that on the channel.
Interviewer
That's cool.
Ryan
And I think I'm hoping people come to the channel and they're like, oh, I feel a little more ownership over the U.S. military, you know, for U.S. citizens or for, you know, people around the world that watch the channel, they just have an understanding of the global conflict and you know, how this could play out and affect them for sure.
Interviewer
So you know the aircraft of other countries pretty well.
Sean Kelly
In business I'm always trying to get the best outcome for the best price price. So it's kind of crazy. I haven't looked at my life insurance in years. I don't even know if what I'm paying is competitive or if I have enough coverage with how things have changed. That's why I started looking into select quote. For over 40 years, they've helped more than 2 million Americans secure over $700 billion in coverage. Their whole model is simple. They shop around to find you the right policy for your specific needs so you're not overpaying or undercovered. Their licensed agents work for you in as little as 15 minutes. They compare policies from top rated carriers to find something that fits your health and your budget. And they do it for free. No medical exam, no problem. You could get same day coverage up to $2 million. And if you've got pre existing conditions, they've got options for that too. Get the right life insurance for you for less and Save more than 50%@SelectQuote.com DSH Save more than 50% on term life insurance@SelectQuote.com DSH Today to get started. That's SelectQuote.com DSH yeah, yeah, as a
Ryan
fighter pilot, you're pretty much studying that every day. You, you go through these training regiments where you actually get pictures of other aircraft and you like post it around your House. So while you're walking around like we're going to the bathroom, like you see pictures of other fighter jets.
Interviewer
That's wild.
Ryan
Cuz you want to be able to spot it from miles away.
Sean Kelly
Right.
Ryan
Going 500 miles an hour. So if you can have that imprinted in your brain kind of like, you know, if you're, if you're basically putting goals or something, you're posting goals, it's the same thing. If you see something every day, it's going to resonate and kind of you're going to absorb that. Right. Same thing with jets.
Interviewer
That's crazy. So if you're out there just going 500 miles per hour and you see an enemy aircraft, what's, what's the protocol there?
Ryan
Well, the big thing is detection first and being able to see it first. So you really have to be hyper aware of like little, a little dot in the sky and you see a little dot in the sky and then you bring a sensor over to it and that's a radar targeting pod. Like these jets have these like insane cameras where you could, I can't say the exact range where you can see from, but you could read a license plate from miles away.
Interviewer
What?
Ryan
Yeah, it's, it's wild.
Interviewer
That's nuts. And you could talk to them too, right? If you want to.
Ryan
Yeah. Yeah. So there, there'd be common frequencies where you could talk to like an enemy pilot per se, or like someone who's not an enemy but not a friendly. You're trying to figure out who they are.
Interviewer
Right.
Ryan
You could say, hey, who are you? What are you doing out here?
Interviewer
That must be kind of like nerve wracking, right?
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
I mean you're probably super trained at that point.
Ryan
But yeah, I mean I think there's always the jitters and excitement because we're all human, you know, and I feel that. But the more you train, the better you can center your nervous system. And high pressure situations, whether it's 500 miles an hour in a fighter jet or it's a high stakes interview.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
Or you know, something that's, that's going down around the globe that you're trying to really get the best information from and you can't be frazzled. Like I noticed those same skills, centering your nervous system. It applies in so many different places.
Interviewer
100%.
Ryan
But yeah, now that we. Actually my girlfriend and I, we just went to the fighter pilot performance lab yesterday.
Interviewer
Oh yeah.
Ryan
And we learned how fighter pilots are better. Directing their nervous system to detect things just like that. To see See, aircraft sooner have better reaction time. And so we did a CrossFit workout, basically. And in between sets, we would do VR recognition of objects moving towards you, aircraft moving away. And it's like intertwining human performance into workouts to train for the same stress you're going to experience up in the air and then how you're going to react under pressure of, hey, is that a friendly aircraft or not? And so being able to do that in real time, when the blood's pumping.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
Adrenaline's going. And you have to use discretion. Right.
Interviewer
Because if it's.
Ryan
If you shoot the wrong aircraft, you could cause an international incident.
Interviewer
So the stakes are high.
Ryan
Really high.
Interviewer
That's cool, though, that the training's got to that point, because I do think replicating as close as you could get to the real life is important.
Ryan
Yeah, I think so, too. And that whole centering the nervous system thing, it just applies in so many different.
Interviewer
So many. So many different things. It's what separates the top people in any industry, whether it's sports, academics, even podcasts. If you could just calm yourself down 100%.
Ryan
Do you feel that in some of the debates where you'll feel, like, attention rising?
Interviewer
Yeah. So if. If someone gets too emotional in debate, it's usually weakness, in my opinion.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
Because then they're not arguing with 100% logic. Right.
Ryan
They're kind of going into fight or flight mode.
Interviewer
Yeah. So I personally see it as a weakness. I know these days with kids, they kind of like that, that blood sport debate style.
Ryan
Yeah. But it. You can definitely tell when the emotion starts to go up, the logic goes down.
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
Interviewer
There's a direct correlation. Yeah. But shout out to Pierce, man, he crushes it. He's figured out the magic formula. Oh, yes, debates.
Ryan
Pierce Morgan's great, and I think it's cool that he brings on people from so many different perspectives.
Interviewer
Agreed.
Ryan
And so in the. In the show that you saw me on, you know, I'm talking about maybe a side that a lot of the guests didn't agree with, you know, or they didn't. Haven't thought of before.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
And he didn't have to bring me on. He could have just had everybody have the same opinion.
Interviewer
Right.
Ryan
Instead he's like, well, I know Ryan probably has a slightly different opinion than a lot of these guests, so I'm going to bring them on. And he says it's the place for fearless debate, which I think is. It's a shout out to him of, good for you. You're keeping the Conversation going in society where today a lot of people try to shut other people down or cancel people. Instead, let's just have the conversation, let's have the debate and. And then let's all learn something.
Interviewer
Yeah. Did you know who you were going up against beforehand?
Ryan
Yeah, I think they sent us the list like maybe an hour before.
Interviewer
So you couldn't really prep.
Ryan
Not really, but I just kind of stuck by, you know, what I believe in and the things that I've learned and. And I was just honestly hoping to share a different perspective for sure. And he opened it up and let me do it. And then we got into Pierce and I got into a little debate. But again, it wasn't like a toxic debate. It was actually learning on what's going on on both sides.
Interviewer
Right.
Ryan
Instead of attacking or anything like that, it was like, no, what. Who's got the better information here or who's got information that we can both learn from?
Interviewer
Yeah. Well, what are you saying exactly, that people find controversial?
Ryan
I guess I think in that case, you know, a lot of people right now it's become super political for the Iran conflict.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
Where there's almost this side of the political spectrum where people are like, we don't really care if the US Loses, as long as we get a political victory. And my thought is like, well, let's. Let's win. Like, I get it, the war is controversial right now. It's a ceasefire, so there's not currently a war going on. There's naval blockade going on, but let's just win this first and let's let the military be supported and then we'll figure out maybe how we could have gone about this better.
Interviewer
Right.
Ryan
But for me, it's just wild to attack President Trump and say, like, he's at the. The exact example was he was saying, we're going to end a civilization, but when I start to 40 chess this out, I'm thinking through and I was like, oh, actually what's happening here is Trump's actually talking to the irgc, which is. That's like the inner group of around the Iranian leadership that's killed somewhere between 15 to 45,000 of their own people. Both. Both numbers are bad. Right. And so I was like, oh, he's not talking about ending the civilization of the Iranian peaceful people. And at the end of the Truth social post, it said the God bless the people of Iran. And I kind of brought that up. And people. No one wanted to acknowledge that there was maybe this misinterpretation of I'm going to end a civilization which could be misinterpreted as, like, he's going to end all of Iran's civilization. And then if you continue to read it, you realize, oh, he's probably talking about the irgc, which that's like the core hardliners that are slaughtering their own people. And, and he doesn't have a direct line to them. They're actually probably reading his truth posts. So this is 4D chess.
Interviewer
So how did they negotiate that?
Ryan
I think it's a treaty or. Yeah, well, I think it's. It was leverage. So it was a US Military showing, like, how strong they were and that, that insane amount of pressure that Trump's putting on them and calling them out directly saying he's going to end them.
Interviewer
And that was a bold tweet.
Ryan
It's a bold tweet.
Interviewer
I'm gonna nuke you by 8pm tonight. Yeah.
Ryan
I mean, and at some point, rather some people that only the only thing that works is force.
Interviewer
Right.
Ryan
Or the threat of force. And that's actually if you see what the IRGC's done, that's how they've controlled their country. Yeah, they just threaten their own people. And if their people go against them, they kill them. And so President Trump was like, all right, well, we're going to use a little bit of your own medicine here. I'm going to put this pressure on you, get leverage over you, bring you to table. And that's what he's done at this point. So it brought them to the table where there's a ceasefire and now they want a complete ending of the conflict. And it looks like from what I can tell just from the video I did today, looks like they're like, hey, guys, we, we want to solve this and we want to give you some concessions that you want. So. But again, you gotta, if you're going to be in a high stakes negotiation, I mean, this is the highest of high stakes negotiations.
Interviewer
Right.
Ryan
And, and I've seen people freak out over this. Like, even like Tucker Carlson, he's been like, oh, President Trump used the F word on. He got really upset about that. And my thought was like, well, actually, you're getting an inside insight into a president who's in the middle of a war, like one of the most intense wars in US History.
Interviewer
It's got to be stressful.
Ryan
Stressful, but also strategic, where he's actually showing us the leverage he's getting against the IRGC or the way that he's pressuring the irgc. We get to actually see that, and maybe you don't want to know how the sausage is made, but like, conflict is crazy. Conflict is wild. So on that same day where Tucker was really mad that the President used the bomb on Easter, that was the same day we rescued that weapon systems officer behind enemy lines. You did you see that story? So we actually went behind enemy lines, rescued a weapon systems officer against all odds. This guy was evading Iranian enemy forces for 40 hours. And we went in and got him. And the. What I've seen so far is we actually had to eliminate like Navy seals, high level para rescue. These Special Forces. Had to eliminate a hundred plus IRGC commandos trying to kill our guy just
Interviewer
to get one guy.
Sean Kelly
Holy.
Interviewer
Yeah, yeah, but that's really wanted this guy.
Ryan
Well, the IRGC really wanted him because it's a propaganda victory. Like, imagine if Iran got that guy and then they did. Now they have leverage.
Interviewer
Prisoner. Yeah.
Ryan
Where they're like, okay, back off your Navy or we're going to kill this negotiation leverage. Totally. And so on that same day that Tucker Carlson was mad that President Trump tweeted out the F bomb on Easter, we literally killed a hundred Iranian commandos trying to get our guy. So I get it, like, the F bomb on Easter isn't great. But, like, we're in the middle of a war.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
And so it's a different mentality. And we're actually getting a front row seat to a President who's letting us see the leverage and negotiation. So again, whether you love President Trump or not, it's pretty nice to know what's actually going on in that office, at least somewhat.
Interviewer
Right.
Ryan
I would much rather know that and see the uncomfortable truth, then not know, and then be kept in the dark. And then there's like a military blunder and no one takes responsibility for it, which we've seen that happen before in the past too. So we're kind of seeing the opposite end of this whole spectrum. Like with the withdrawal from Afghanistan during the Biden administration, that was a military blunder. Right. It was done haphazardly. Wasn't done. Right. And then we just got a little message that was like, okay, we're out of Afghanistan now. And everyone's like, why did 13 Marines die? You know, like, and we didn't. We never got an answer. And no one stood up and took responsibility. So there's two different sides to this. And I get what Tucker Carlson was saying, but at the same time, I'm like, hey, man, we're in the middle of a war. F bomb on Easter isn't Great. But also, we had to kill 100 Iranian commandos on Easter. Should we not have done that? Should we have let them get our weapon systems officer? Because we don't want to hurt anybody on Easter. Like, it's different when we're in the middle of a war, for sure, you know?
Interviewer
Yeah, there's bigger problems than that. Bombs on Easter, I think.
Ryan
Yeah, I think so, too.
Interviewer
Do you think the reactions from the general public is overreacting, or what do you feel like? Because there's a lot of people turning on Trump at the moment. I'm sure you've seen the polls. Yeah, he called out like, Alex Jones, Tucker, Candace and Megyn Kelly recently.
Ryan
Yeah. I mean, it's getting hot. It's getting heated. And I don't. I'm trying to kind of see is it. Are a lot of them turning on him for the clicks and is that kind of the popular thing to do right now?
Interviewer
It definitely is.
Ryan
Yeah. And it is working.
Sean Kelly
Right?
Ryan
Because they're probably getting a lot of clicks out of it, and they're in the business of getting attention. And when I look at. At people like Tucker and Candace, I'm like, they got to remain relevant. And so if the popular thing right now to do is to bash Trump and, you know, get more views at some point when you're.
Sean Kelly
You.
Ryan
I mean, we. We both are content creators, right? So it's important to get views and get clicks.
Interviewer
It's.
Ryan
It's our business. It's the way that we're hopefully positively impacting the world. But at some point, what I try to do is I'm like, okay, even if I get a few less clicks, but I'm really just focus on getting what the truth is. Like, I'm okay with that.
Interviewer
I feel like I align with that,
Ryan
too, but I do want to get the clicks still. Like, I'm not going to sit here and say I don't want to get an audience to. To watch and I don't want to grow my channel. Like, of course. But I think when you get to those levels where, what you're at, where Tucker's at, it's like, okay, maybe you got to just step back and see, like, are you on the right side of history here?
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
I don't know. Yeah.
Interviewer
That's why I like bringing on both sides. Yeah. You know, totally the truth. Let the audience decide from hearing both
Ryan
perspectives 100%, and then we can grow. And ultimately, I think you'll.
Sean Kelly
You'll.
Ryan
Your channel will be bigger at the end of the day. Like, I think even if, you know, Tucker was bringing on both sides or Candace was bringing on both sides, and it wasn't just all this anti Israel stuff, if there was more of a middle ground, I think at some point it would balance out. Because right now it's, it's really popular to say everything's Israel's fault. Like, that's what I see in the news. I'm like, wait, so it's raining today, so it's Israel's fault? Or like, you know what I mean? And so I think at some point it'll balance out. And then if this does balance out, I think people will look back and be like, oh, that was kind of silly that you literally just blamed everything on Israel. And you know, there's people coming out like Joe Kent, saying that the only reason that the US Got involved in the war was because, with the war with Iran was because Israel pressured us to.
Interviewer
A lot of people say that.
Ryan
Yeah, yeah. And the thing I like to say, and I said it on Pierce Morgan as well, is like, yeah, Israel's obviously benefiting from the US Getting rid of the Ayatollah neighbors. Yeah. And the Ayatollah screamed death to Israel, death to America every day. And they wanted a nuclear weapon. And so, yeah, obviously Israel is going to benefit from that guy not being there. But the U.S. i think, is going to benefit too. Just from the way that I've studied what Iran's plans have been. They wanted to have 10,000 ballistic missiles that could then protect a nuclear weapon. So then that nuclear weapon couldn't be destroyed.
Interviewer
Wow.
Ryan
And then if they got that likely, I mean, again, it's, it's hard to say, like, we're preventing something from happening when we don't know if it would have happened. But it's kind of like, all right, all the signs are pointing to this guy saying, death to Israel. He wants a nuclear weapon. He wants 10,000 ballistic missiles to protect it. At some point he probably is going to use it. Right. And then if he lobs a nuclear weapon at Israel, Israel lobs one back. Now we've got a nuclear war. And, and is that going to be good for the US or the world? No. So I think the big thing for the US is like, if we take action now, we can hopefully avoid that scenario in 10, 15 years where now our kids are, you know, having to deal with a nuclear armed Iran getting in a conflict with Israel and we can't do anything about it.
Interviewer
Right.
Ryan
Because they have those 10,000 ballistic missiles and probably 50, 000 of those Shahid drones, those little Dorito looking drones that they have.
Interviewer
I was just gonna ask you about drones. So those nukes are definitely to be feared, but drones, I feel like they're so cheap to make and you can just make so many of them and just wipe out whatever you want, right?
Ryan
Dude, it's changed everything. Yeah, it's really changed everything. So as a fighter pilot, I mean I've looked at systems that China has. They have a drone mothership.
Interviewer
White. Yeah, that's like Star Trek.
Ryan
It's wild.
Interviewer
It's wild.
Ryan
They have this huge aircraft, it can fly over a country and literally release thousands of drones. Oh my God.
Interviewer
Yeah, that's scary.
Ryan
That's scary.
Interviewer
Especially as a pilot because if you're mid air when there's thousands of drones. Can I fly up that high though?
Ryan
Well, there's advanced ones that I think, you know, probably haven't been released. But if I'm just kind of, you know, connecting A with B, I'm like, okay, China's probably going to make some drones that can go up really high.
Interviewer
You can't shoot those down. They're too small.
Ryan
Too small. And there's too many of them.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
So that's why we've seen like the evolution of high powered microwave technology. It's a, it's a new way to fight. So again, I love technology being brought into warfare because hopefully it creates deterrence. So if, if both sides have exceptional technology, it's kind of like with nuclear weapons ideally if, if the weapons aren't held by a radical cleric like in Iran, if it's a, like a maybe more predictable actor like Russia, China, US with nuclear weapons, we all kind of look at each other and we're like, oh, well, we don't want to get a nuclear war because we know it's just annihilation for everybody.
Interviewer
Right.
Ryan
So kind of the same thing with military technology and drones. The way I look at it is if we have the most advanced anti drone technology, which doesn't mean just projectiles.
Interviewer
Right.
Ryan
Projectiles is like, you know, the 2000s, you know, now it's like, okay, what kind of energy weapons can we use to fry these drones out of the sky? No one even knows we did it.
Interviewer
And they, that's what they did in Venezuela right. When they captured Maduro.
Ryan
I think there was rumors about that. There was rumors. There was like a security guard who came out and said, next. One minute he was standing there with a gun, next minute, yeah, gun had fallen down and he had blood coming out of his nose.
Interviewer
Crazy.
Ryan
It was something like that would make sense to me.
Interviewer
The way they captured him, it was just so in and out, easy.
Ryan
Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I don't know what technology they use there, but if I was in charge, I'd be like, let's get the best technology on these drones we possibly can.
Interviewer
Yeah. So that is nuts too. Yeah. If a nuke were to get launched like from halfway across the world, how much time would we have? Because you see people buying bunkers and stuff, but would you even have enough time to get to shelter?
Ryan
I don't think you would. I mean, it depends on where it was launched from.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
So nuclear war would be so wild. I think that's like the number one thing to avoid.
Interviewer
I mean, maybe you can agree on that. I feel like.
Ryan
Yeah, yeah. And so that's why I think this war with Iran, if there's a chance we're avoiding a nuclear conflict, didn't we
Interviewer
take theirs out though, I thought.
Ryan
Or was that. Yeah, we dropped. Right, yeah. In 2025, B2 bombers dropped on their uranium enrichment facilities. And so they took out their centrifuges that were underground. But part of my thing is if, if you're just building nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, why is it all underground? You know, like, why are all these typical.
Interviewer
I don't know how it's normally.
Ryan
I don't think so. I mean, I'm not an expert on nuclear reactors, but that there's a lot of, you know, if you look at nuclear power plants. Yeah, they're above ground, you know, that's what I thought.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
I guess if you're hiding it, you would want to do it below ground because of all the imaging these days.
Ryan
Yeah, exactly. Yep, totally.
Interviewer
And I'm sure there's advanced mapping technology now.
Ryan
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it's pretty interesting too, how like the different bunkers themselves, there's, there's depictions of how big they are. I mean, they're under entire mountains, so that's a hard problem. Yeah. And suppose so we dropped bombs, B2 bomber dropped bombs on those in 2025, some of the locations around Iran. But they were building a new underground bunker that was way deeper than those that might, that a B2 might not even be able to reach. And so again, that's why I think another part of this action taking place makes sense because if they're going to build one that even the B2 with, it's a 30,000 pound bomb that it dropped, Gee, it's like the sky's the size of a skyscraper.
Interviewer
That's impressive that a plate can even carry that.
Ryan
Yeah. And carry two of them.
Interviewer
Oh, my gosh.
Ryan
And so it dropped those and then those penetrated down. I mean, the. The actual number is classified how deep each one can go, but they hit the vent shafts, so they didn't actually have to hit the uranium sites themselves. They hit the vent shafts, which cool all the different inner workings of that system. So we did that. And now if they're going to build one that is, let's say it's like 500ft underground and the first one was like 200. How do you. How do you do anything with the 500 foot one underground? And maybe you can't.
Interviewer
It would have to be drones, I'd imagine.
Ryan
Drones. Yeah.
Interviewer
Or sneak in there.
Ryan
Interesting.
Interviewer
Through the air vent. Oh, like some of them are tiny these days. I don't know how true that is, but that's wild.
Ryan
So thinking of a drone that could be like the size of an.
Interviewer
I heard some. I've had weapons experts on that can fly through an air vent and take you out too. I don't know if they could take out a reactor, but. Wow. Crazy, right?
Ryan
Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. We need anti drone technology in here.
Interviewer
I know I have anti EMF technology, but.
Ryan
Oh, that's cool.
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
Interviewer
Stop a drone.
Ryan
Yeah, exactly.
Interviewer
Yeah. Drones are scary, man. Those keep me up at night. Yeah, I'm sure technology we have access to these days, it's good and bad.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
I mean, if someone else has it, we're gonna need it. Yeah.
Ryan
And then there was that incident in El Paso. Do you remember that?
Interviewer
El Paso, Is that Texas?
Ryan
They had to shut down the airport because supposedly cartel drones were flying over.
Interviewer
Really?
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
Oh, wait, I think I do remember this.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
Because they use. The cartels use drones for drugs, right?
Ryan
Yeah, I think they' used them for years. And they also use them to kill each other. So cartels fight each other. There's videos you can find on X where they're literally dropping bombs on each other with drones. It's pretty wild.
Interviewer
Nuts, dude.
Ryan
Yeah. And they sent the cartel got caught sending people to Ukraine to pretend to be on the Ukrainian side. And they trained in the drone academies that Ukraine was training in to fight Russia with. So they infiltrated those and they got
Interviewer
to learn about the drone you sent. Yeah.
Ryan
And then they came back and then they taught all of like, like whatever cartel how to actually use those drones.
Interviewer
Yeah. Because I know that war. There's a lot of drone usage.
Ryan
Yeah. Definitely That's a wild one. It's crazy. It's still going on.
Interviewer
Still. It's been years. I feel like people don't talk about it as much.
Ryan
Yeah, it's out of the news cycle right now. Then Iran war has taken hold.
Interviewer
Exactly.
Ryan
But that one's probably, I mean, that definitely way more bloody.
Interviewer
Over a million dots, right?
Ryan
That's what I've heard too.
Interviewer
Yeah. Because Iran only 15 US so far or something around that.
Ryan
I think it is. Yeah. 15, 13 or 15.
Interviewer
Yeah. No boots on the ground yet. So if that happens, that could be devastating. Yeah, I'm not a fan of that. No.
Ryan
Yeah, I'm a big proponent of no boots on the ground. I mean, if there, if it comes to it, you know, hopefully Iran makes a deal. I think making a deal will be great and then we can all kind of move on. We don't have to have this war hangover anymore that everybody seems to have. We can kind of all come back to center focus on our country. But surgical operations like Special Forces and things like that, I, that type of thing would make sense to me if needed, like take out high value targets and things like that. That's kind of what they did in the early days of Iraq and Afghanistan. But then they like dropped the ball when like Dick Cheney and these guys decided, oh, we're gonna do a massive invasion force in Afghanistan.
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
Ryan
And so I flew fighter jets over Afghanistan. I flew 70 combat missions over there. And I would fly over these Ford operating bases that had thousands of U.S. soldiers. And I remember flying over one of them that was in the bottom of a like 360 degree canyon. And so it was down at the bottom and I was like, this is the least strategic thing ever seen. And I asked the ground forces commander, so we'd fly these combat missions and I would call him afterwards because we ended up dropping a few bombs and.
Sean Kelly
Yeah.
Ryan
And I was like, why is that base built down there? And he said, oh, well, one of the strategies that we got from higher leadership was we had to draw out the insurgents from the local population and see who would shoot at us. And I was like, what are we doing? This is crazy.
Interviewer
Doesn't make sense to me. Right.
Ryan
But then if you. Then I started to unpack and I told you I met Dick Cheney at the super bowl. And, and it was kind of weird. Like, it was, it was awkward. He's like, oh, Thunderbirds, huh? And I'm in my Thunderbird outfit. And he's like, that's cool. I had a little project of My own. It was called the Gulf War. And I was like, oh. Like, it was just weird.
Interviewer
He didn't know your background at all.
Ryan
Yeah, exactly. But when I think about. When I thought about that answer he gave me, I started to research, and Halliburton was his company. And that company got no bid contracts to build bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it said that they made over a hundred billion dollars.
Interviewer
No way.
Ryan
Yeah. The company itself, Halliburton, over 100 billionaire billion. Oh, yeah. I think he passed away now, but his family, you know, that money's been passed down. But if you look at the whole reason why we. Why Iraq and Afghanistan had that boots on the ground situation, literally a slot machine for Halliburton to make money. To make money.
Interviewer
Disgusting. That's. That's when you hear the military industrial complex. Yeah, but I get stuff like that.
Ryan
And that's even worse to me, that's worse than the military industrial complex because military industrial complex might be creating amazing technology that saves American lives. Like the thing in Venezuela. Right. Like, but that's not a boots on the ground invasion where a couple guys are making $100 billion.
Interviewer
Yeah. That's disgusting.
Ryan
It's crazy.
Interviewer
There's a lot of fraud with gov contracts. Yo.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
Some people in that space. And it's dirty money.
Ryan
Yeah, for sure. Well, especially in that case with Cheney and Bush where they're the. They're the ones signing the contracts. They're the president and the vice president. And so they literally can do whatever they want with our taxpayer dollars. Disgusting.
Interviewer
I got into it a little bit. Not intentionally, but during the pandemic, I wanted to help out.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
So I was selling mass and like, PPE equipment.
Ryan
Okay.
Interviewer
Government to states, cities, and hospitals.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
And people were just ripping these guys off because the government will pay whatever. Right. You know what I mean?
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
It was nuts. The fraud I saw, though, man, like, they would get a mask for 10 cents and sell it for like 4 bucks. Wow. It was nasty.
Ryan
Fraud lately is crazy, man. All the stuff that's being uncovered. What do you. What are your thoughts on that? Like the quality leering centers and all that stuff?
Interviewer
Oh, yeah. Now Cali's trying to pass a stop Nick Shirley act.
Ryan
I saw that.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
And so Nick Shirley was like, all right, I'm going to Cali next week.
Interviewer
Like, he's a nice kid. I brought him the UFC last time he was in Vegas. Oh, cool. I can't believe they're doing that to him for. Just investigating. Right. Even if he's wrong, why Would you want to stop an investigator?
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
And pass an act for that?
Ryan
I know. I feel like it's an opportunity even for guys like Gavin Newsom. Like, it's an opportunity to show you're on the, you're like middle of the road and you have common sense.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
If they were to kind of align with him and just say, hey, man, okay, how do we help? How do we fix this? I mean, that would probably be. If I was on Gavin Newsom's PR team, I'd be like, hey, this is, you know, this is an opportunity.
Interviewer
I agree. But I think he has too many skeletons.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
You know what I mean?
Ryan
Too far gone.
Interviewer
I've heard some wild stuff about him.
Ryan
Gotcha.
Interviewer
And it looks like he might run for president, so. Yeah, we'll see if those come to light.
Ryan
Yeah. Do you think he could still win based on what Nick Shirley's finding in California?
Interviewer
Yes, because Trump's just getting hammered right now. So I feel like if this war continues, he's going to keep losing support and then people are going to want a change. Like, I think the right is going to lose the midterms.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
You know?
Ryan
Yeah. Do you think if he winds it down and gets it kind of closed buttoned up, it would help in the next couple months?
Interviewer
Yeah. Don't you agree on that? Yeah.
Ryan
And I think elongated wars are terrible anyways. Even just, just despite political reasons, like just having long term wars, I don't think it's good for society.
Interviewer
And you're saying this as a veteran, you know.
Ryan
Yeah, I mean, like I was saying earlier, it's kind of like I feel like America has a little bit of a war hangover from all the Iraq and Afghanistan stuff, like all the different, all the different mental health crises that happen to veterans coming back from that.
Interviewer
Never the same, really. Yeah, he went. I think he went to both, but I remember Iraq. He lost his best friend that stepped on a landmine right next to him.
Ryan
I need to come back. How do you come back from.
Interviewer
His thigh blew off and then like he literally saw him die.
Ryan
Well, how's he doing now?
Interviewer
Terrible, dude. He ended up in prison and that's come, man. Drugs.
Ryan
So sad.
Interviewer
Yeah, he just like reached out to me. I hope he could get better, but, dude, it messes you up mentally. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure you got stories for days on that.
Ryan
Yeah. I mean, I saw my best friend die in a plane crash six months into flight school.
Interviewer
Six months in.
Ryan
Yeah. Yeah. I'm the kid who's like, you know, top Gun posters on the wall. This is just, like, sexy. Aviation's amazing. And that's the attitude I had right until I saw, you know, my friend crash. And I realized, like, oh, this is not just the Top Gun. I mean, the Top Gun is a part of it, but this is real. And, yeah, military and warfare is. It's. Can be very deadly and unforgiving. And so, yeah, seeing him crash right next to me, he ejected out the ejection seat, didn't have enough time to work, and so it hit the ground. And so him and the instructor pilot didn't survive. Yeah, so I won't. I went through the dark night of the soul. I mean, probably like your. Your family member, where I was like, do I. Do I quit? Do I. What do I do here? Didn't really know how to handle it, so I kind of fell back on my faith. And I think that's something that really helped me out a lot. I went and talked to a chaplain. The military gives us access, whatever religion you are, you know, it could be Muslim, Jewish, Christian, whatever. They've got access for you. And so I'm a Christian. So I went to a chaplain and I sat with them, and I was like, man, I don't know what to do here. This is on. This is uncharted territory for me. Like, I had survivor's guilt, things like that. And so I think just falling back on my faith and knowing that, you know, at the end of the day, I don't have to have it all figured out. And that feeling off sometimes is just. It's normal as a human. Like, you're not always going to feel centered and dialed and to just go through the process of healing, sometimes the only way out is through. It's kind of what I realized. And then I sat back and realized, like, what do I want my story to be? Do I want my story to be that I quit, or do you want my story to be, you know what? I. I dealt with it. I felt the pain, and then I moved forward while still feeling the pain. Most days, you know, some. Some. Some nights, going to bed crying, you know, having lost my best friend, but waking up in the morning with a determined. Just a determined feeling that I'm gonna. I'm gonna do everything I can to represent his memory well, and then I continue to do that. Unfortunately, I ended up losing three other close friends. And that's just fighter jet aviation. I mean, it's. It's crazy, man. It's.
Interviewer
The.
Ryan
The stakes are really. The margins for error are really slim.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
But I think losing my best friend early on kind of put me in a position where I was like, all right, I gotta have faith. I gotta have something stronger than just myself to get me through this. And helped me with the other three losses, but they still affected me, you know, and we're all human. So I think if. If veterans think that they can just power through, that's a. That's not the right approach. There's so many access. There's so many programs out there right now. There's regular therapy, there's alternative therapy, there's psychedelic therapy. I mean, there's things that are being passed right now. I saw that psychedelics for veterans might actually be a thing now.
Interviewer
Yeah, that's cool. I'm in favor of that.
Ryan
Me too.
Interviewer
I've talked to a lot of veterans that have tried that. Yeah. Spoke wonders.
Ryan
Yeah. I think in a controlled environment where you're able to unlock and access some of that trauma, look at it directly, process it. But I think we really get in trouble as humans, whether you're a veteran or not, when you just bury trauma or hard things that have happened to you and you pretend like you're fine and you just try to power through, it doesn't work. No.
Interviewer
It catches up to you every time. Every time.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
You can't outwork it.
Ryan
Yeah, exactly.
Interviewer
That's what happened to me. I was doing that, and then burnout just caught up, and I started having panic attacks and collapsing.
Ryan
Yeah. What did you do to get through that?
Interviewer
Tried psychedelics. Tried regular therapy. Tried being in nature.
Sean Kelly
Surprisingly.
Interviewer
Worked pretty well.
Ryan
That's cool.
Interviewer
Yeah. Because we're in such a technological age now. We're just inside all the. We lose touch with nature.
Ryan
Yeah. You're not like, grounding. You're not feeling grounded anymore at all.
Interviewer
Especially when you live in city. I feel like. Yeah. You know, but, man, thanks for sharing that. That's crazy.
Ryan
Yeah, absolutely.
Interviewer
Yeah. I feel like in the pilot profession, I'd imagine the casualties are higher than average military roles. Right?
Ryan
Yeah. Yeah. It's just. It's. It's. Again, it's like a split second could just totally end everything. You know, you're going 500 miles an hour, sometimes 200ft above the ground. So if you just have a bad day, I mean, I had friends that were having personal issues and, you know, issues that, as an emotional being, we're all. Emotional beings are just affecting them, and they just weren't on point that day.
Interviewer
Wow.
Ryan
So.
Interviewer
And that's what. Holy crap.
Ryan
One of my friends crashed you know, he's having some personal struggles. Crashed and, you know, he probably wasn't sleeping very well.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
So there's just so many things that I think we got to go back, remind ourselves, like, we're all humans. We all need to take a second and process difficult things. And something that's really. And this is just a side tangent, but something that's helped me a lot is cold, like, doing. It's not for everybody. I'm not saying. Yeah, yeah. But I feel like it helps me when I get in cold water. It just helps me look at all the BS that I'm avoiding.
Interviewer
Interesting.
Ryan
I just have to. It just like, pops right there. I'm like, oh, I didn't want to see that.
Interviewer
Like, I always saw it as purely a physical health thing. But that's interesting.
Ryan
I think there's a lot more. There's a lot of mental health aspects to it as well. If you do it consistently, too. And. Yeah, I don't know what it is, man. I think there's something special about it.
Interviewer
I might have to get one up house. I got a sauna. I know the hot. Cold is. Is good.
Ryan
Yeah. Bouncing back and forth. Yeah, good, too. Yeah. And again, that's just nervous system regulation. And so. Absolutely, a lot of times when we feel ungrounded, it's. We're losing track of our nervous system. So we're. We have to, at some point, get back to center. And so the body will do things to get back to center. And a lot of times that leads to addiction. So it could be a nicotine addiction, alcohol addiction. But all these drugs are basically built to make us feel and pretend like we have a central nervous system. But the way it works is you'll do, like, let's just say it's a cocaine or even nicotine. It gives you a nice spike, and then you crash down relatively fast. But with cold plunge, it'll spike your adrenaline levels and your hormones, and then it does a slow decrease over the course of, like, three or four hours.
Interviewer
That's why people do it in the morning.
Ryan
Yeah. And you don't feel that crash. Right. Like, I've never tried cocaine, but I'm assuming, like, it's probably awesome. That's why I don't want to try it.
Interviewer
I don't want to try it.
Ryan
Yeah, same. But you'll get that, like, extreme spike, and then it feels good, and people. That's why people get addicted. And then, like, 30 minutes later, boom, Crash. Oh, gotta do more boom. But with a cold plunge, it's basically doping, but you're getting up to that level of regulation and it's just keeping you there for a nice slow burn.
Interviewer
Try that. You got one at the house.
Ryan
Yeah, yeah. It's got like a blow up one. It's got a little pump next to it. Wasn't that expensive. I do like 45, 45 degrees.
Interviewer
I will get crazy with it.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
Wim Hof. Have you seen him?
Ryan
Yes.
Interviewer
Oh my gosh.
Ryan
Yes.
Interviewer
There's ice on his.
Ryan
Oh, dude. I don't know. That guy's like a mutant is an alien.
Interviewer
I did one last week actually at a health conference. I was filming two minutes. It was tough.
Ryan
Oh yeah.
Interviewer
I felt great after how.
Ryan
What was the temperature on it?
Interviewer
Probably there was ice in there, but he just put it in. So maybe 50s.
Ryan
Okay. Yeah, yeah. I feel like you can get to a point where it is counter and it's not helping you, it's actually hurting you.
Interviewer
Yeah. If you stay in too long too. Same with sauna.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
Right. Because it's balance. Yeah.
Ryan
Because it's just balanced stress. Right. So it's like the perfect sweet spot is good. We actually learned that in the human performance lab, the fighter pilot performance lab, where if you're too exhausted from the workout and then you go in and you try to do the hand eye coordination tasks which mimic like a fighter jet task. If you're too exhausted, your ability to have hand eye coordination goes way down. But if you're in this nice little like if you're just sitting there and you hadn't done anything for the day or it's your first couple minutes of the flight, you're not as dialed in and tuned in. But if it's a couple minutes in, you've pulled a few GS, G forces or you know that pressure that's put on your body.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
And in order to, to fight that, you have to squeeze all your muscles to push the blood back up into your brain. So if you've done a few iterations of pulling GS, then you're better at hand eye coordination. But it's the sweet spot.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
If you're exhausted, your hand eye and
Interviewer
your reaction time must be nuts. Like an F1 driver.
Ryan
And especially when I was flying every day. So on the Thunderbirds we flew pretty much twice a day.
Interviewer
Wow.
Ryan
Every day.
Interviewer
And how fast are those going?
Ryan
Those are like you're, you know, average about 500 miles an hour.
Interviewer
Sharp turns.
Ryan
Oh yeah, sharp turns. You're rejoining another aircraft. You're 2 1/2ft away. 3ft away from a fighter jet.
Interviewer
500 miles per hour.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
That's insane. Yep. Actually nuts.
Ryan
Oh, man, it was so fun. But it literally. Sean, you'll appreciate this, like broke my adrenaline system, man. Really, like for a while. Like I. So I was flying twice a day and then when I stopped. So you have to leave at some point.
Interviewer
Right.
Ryan
And so I stopped flying and I literally felt withdrawals. It was like adrenaline withdrawals.
Interviewer
I could see it though, because you're living such a fast paced lifestyle.
Ryan
Yeah. So I'd wake up at like 2am and go to the gym. Like, I just, Yeah. I was like, oh, I gotta do something. But the gym helped.
Sean Kelly
Okay.
Ryan
Gym really helped me. I mean it wasn't, it wasn't the same. But over time, the gym and intense workouts really helped me to regulate and get back to that center. Just like you talked about regulating the nervous system. Because my nervous system was like, wait, why aren't we, why isn't our adrenaline spiked today? You know?
Interviewer
Yeah, that's nuts. Is AI going to get good enough to do what the Thunderbirds did? Like, like the best pilots. Can it actually do that at a certain level?
Ryan
I think it could. Yeah. I think it could get there. And I, I think if it was drones, it could probably be way more maneuverable because the human body can pull roughly nine GS for a small amount of time. That's just nine times the amount of weight we feel right now. We're at 1G. So we feel 1G on our body right now. Nine is how much these fighter jets can pull. And the only reason they stop at nine is because that's when the, what the human body can handle.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
Any more than that and you're just gonna pass out right away.
Interviewer
Top Gun, they went to 10, I think.
Ryan
Yeah. And so you could probably spike to that really quickly.
Interviewer
Yeah, yeah.
Ryan
And. But in an, in an ejection, you can pull like 20.
Interviewer
Damn.
Ryan
But you're, it's going to make you pass out momentarily. And that's okay because I never had to do that. No, I trained for it. We all trained for it. And then you do, you go and you drop out of an airplane with a parachute and you practice falling because the big thing is falling. Because if you fall wrong when you land. Yeah.
Interviewer
Right. You could break a leg.
Ryan
Yeah. Then you can't run. Like this weapon systems officer in Iran, if he would have broken a leg, he would have gotten caught like that. And now we got an international incident because he, he didn't land correctly. Wow.
Interviewer
So it's 20. So you literally get knocked out when
Ryan
you jack for a second. Yeah. I'd say you're. You're. You lose consciousness probably for a couple seconds.
Interviewer
Wow.
Ryan
Just because it's so fast and it's. All the blood in your brain just goes.
Interviewer
Yeah, I never thought about that. That's crazy.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
So you're just, like, on autopilot as soon as you regain consciousness. Yeah.
Ryan
And I've heard you get temporal distortion where everything slows down too. So as soon as you come back, you're kind of seeing things happen in slow motion, you know, And. And people have experienced that in, like, car wrecks and things like that too, really. Of violent things where your body's getting shaken around. Temporal distortion happens. And I think it's a way our nervous system is trying to actually assess what's going on.
Interviewer
Yeah. Yeah. The human body's so fascinating, so incredible. Adaptable.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
I saw a video of a broken bone being healed yesterday. It's just like, oh, man, it's cool. It made me believe in God, honestly, because it's like there's no way that's just happening.
Ryan
That's so cool.
Interviewer
You know, like, it was a time
Ryan
lapse of the bone healing.
Interviewer
Yeah. Like.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
Our body just heals broken bones by itself.
Ryan
Yeah. It's intuitive.
Interviewer
Yeah.
Ryan
Right?
Interviewer
Smart.
Ryan
Yeah.
Interviewer
Well, dude, this was great. How could people support your show and keep up with you, man?
Ryan
Just go to Max Afterburner USA on YouTube. Check us out there.
Interviewer
Cool. We'll link it there. Thanks for coming on.
Ryan
Hey, John.
Interviewer
Thanks, man. Catch a flight with you one of these days, dude.
Ryan
That'd be awesome. Let's do it. Let's go. Pull nine G's.
Interviewer
See you guys. Thanks for watching all the way to the end, guys. Means a lot. Please click here if you want to watch the next episode and please subscribe to the show.
Sean Kelly
It helps us get more guests and
Interviewer
helps grow the brand.
Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Ryan (former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, entrepreneur, YouTuber: Max Afterburner USA)
Date: June 18, 2026
This episode of Digital Social Hour takes listeners deep into the realities behind current U.S.-Iran tensions, the true intentions of Iran's leadership, and how modern war extends beyond the battlefield—into propaganda and information operations. Ryan, a combat-tested fighter pilot and former Thunderbird, details his unique perspective combining firsthand military experience and analytical commentary. He and Sean also delve into technology’s impact on warfare, military-industrial politics, mental health in veterans, and what it truly takes to perform under the highest stakes.
On Iran’s strategic intentions:
“The way that I’ve studied what Iran’s plans have been… they wanted to have 10,000 ballistic missiles that could then protect a nuclear weapon. So then that nuclear weapon couldn’t be destroyed.” – Ryan (24:21)
On propaganda & information wars:
“War isn’t just war… it’s also propaganda wars. War takes place now on the internet, right? Takes place in the media, public opinion.” – Ryan (09:09)
On survivor’s guilt and healing after loss:
“I had survivor’s guilt, things like that. Sometimes the only way out is through. I realized… do I want my story to be that I quit, or that I dealt with it, felt the pain, and moved forward while still feeling the pain?” – Ryan (38:30–38:50)
On military-industrial corruption:
“Halliburton was [Dick Cheney’s] company. That company got no-bid contracts… made over a hundred billion dollars… a slot machine for Halliburton to make money.” – Ryan (33:51–34:08)
On drones and future warfare:
“China has a drone mothership… it can fly over a country and literally release thousands of drones.” – Ryan (26:07)
On public opinion and media click-chasing:
“Are a lot of them turning on [Trump] for the clicks? And is that the popular thing to do right now?” – Ryan (22:22)
Listeners leave with a grounded understanding of U.S.–Iran tensions, the realities behind military decision-making, the psychological toll of combat, and why nuanced, multi-perspective dialogue matters more than ever.