From Helicopters to Air Force One: A Pilot's Journey Through 16,000 Flight Hours | Major Ken Lee

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Naval Aviation Ready Room Podcast with Ryan Keys Episode: From Helicopters to Air Force One: A Pilot's Journey Through 16,000 Flight Hours | Major Ken Lee
Date: March 3, 2026
Guest: Major Ken Lee (USAF, Retired)

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Overview

In this episode, retired USAF Major Ken Lee shares his extraordinary aviation journey—covering 16,000 flight hours—in a conversation with host Ryan Keyes. From the challenges and excitement of helicopter rescue missions in California to the rigorous culture of SAC tankers during the Cold War, through to the immense privilege and responsibility of piloting Air Force One and a post-military career flying international cargo and commercial jets, Ken offers vivid stories, surprising lessons, and candid leadership insights. The episode explores the evolving nature of military and commercial aviation, leadership under pressure, innovations in flight safety, and the importance of adaptability.

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Major Discussion Topics & Insights

1. Beginnings in Helicopters: Training, Rescue, and Army-Air Force Dynamics

Key Segments: [01:56] – [12:25]

• Flight School at Fort Rucker ([01:58]): Ken recounts an era before aviation became its own Army branch—with joint classes of Army officers and Air Force officers, the separation from warrant officer candidates (who "were getting the abuse the entire time").
• Training Aircraft & Phases: Approximately 80 hours in the TH-55 (Hughes 300) before moving to the Huey, with phases including VFR, Night Vision Goggle ("old Ambus fives, they cut away the bottom... tough"), and instrument flying ("nothing harder than flying a Huey on instruments" [03:59]).
• Camaraderie and Culture: Blend of Army and Air Force cultures in training, early introduction of women to Air Force helicopter piloting ("the very first Air Force female was going to be a helicopter pilot, Lee Whittig, now Lee Sergi" [02:23]).
• High-Stakes Rescue Work: At Edwards AFB, numerous water and mountain rescues, medevacs, and the "coolest thing... rescued a dog one time, which I thought was the coolest thing. PJ went down on the hoist, grabbed his dog and drug him back up. It was fantastic." [09:17]
• Olympic Security and Law Enforcement Support: Provided helicopters for FBI during the LA Olympics; experienced LA's unique helicopter route structure ([10:44]-[10:58]).
• Leadership Lessons: Early mentorship, being trusted as a young lieutenant, and being "left alone" after initial guidance ([08:18]).

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2. Transition to Fixed Wing: Overcoming the "Helicopter Stigma"

Key Segments: [12:25] – [22:01]

• Advice to Move to Fixed Wing: "If you ever want to get ahead in this man's Air Force, you're going to have to go fly fixed wing." (Mentor: Jay Messenger, [13:26])
• The Path: Moved from VIP helo duty at Andrews to the T-37, then the more challenging T-38 jet at Randolph. "This is way easier than a Huey on instruments." [14:36]
• SAC Tanker Culture:
  • "They have no sense of humor. We do alert and we are studying Russian fighters and bombers and where all the missiles are." [17:15]
  • Water Wagon KC-135s: Early tankers injected water to boost engine thrust during "emergency war orders" takeoffs—a unique, demanding skill set ([18:25]-[21:37]).
  • Memorable Quote: "You never wanted to move first [during an alert] ... you always waited for somebody else to move before you would move." [20:07]
• Desert Storm Moment: Vivid recollection of the surprise, speed, and seriousness as the Gulf War began.

  "I walk out of the shower, I'm looking at the tv, I go, invasion, eh, who cares? Arab country, eh, no big deal. I don't care. About an hour later, I cared..." ([00:00]/[22:55])

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3. Flying Special Air Missions & Air Force One

Key Segments: [25:42] – [44:43]

• Screening & Selection: Rigorous application and interview process to join Andrews’ 1st Airlift Squadron. Had to have 2,500 hours of instructing in heavy aircraft (helicopter hours did not count) ([26:19]).
• Early Air Force One Observations:
  • “You don’t really think about it...a little nervous the first time you do it...then after that, it kind of becomes a normal event, as normal as that can be with a lot of cameras going.” [01:30]
  • “You learn that the news doesn’t always get it right because you see things with your own eyes...” [01:43]
• Aircrew Culture & Structure:
  • Presidential pilots: just 8 (4 full-time, 4 “augmentee”); called up, rather than applied, for permanent duty ([30:32]).
  • Two aircraft dedicated solely to the president—“Vice President didn’t fly in the 747,” despite requests like Gore’s. [37:03]
• Missions & Mindset:
  • “You fly everybody but the President”—from Vice President down, including cabinet and congressional delegations.
  • Detailed trip planning: pilots responsible for operational viability (runways, weight limits, potable water), with navs handling diplomatic clearances (often via old-school messaging before email) ([33:34]-[35:13]).
  • List of Demands: Every foreign trip comes with an extensive embassy support request—“really interrupting life for them.” [35:13]
• Leading in Uncertainty:
  • “The pilots did all the flying planning... some of the stuff we did back then, I’m not sure you get away with now...” [33:28]
  • Stories of in-flight maintenance and flexibility: "while the Clintons are off eating dinner, my two flight engineers are literally on top of the wing... working on this engine. It's crazy." [41:36]
• Decision Authority: Despite high-profile passengers, pilot-in-command always had final go/no-go authority. “Got to go, divert, and off we go. And never encountered [pushback] on any.” [44:29]
  • Quote on Responsibility: “[As] a major, with a lot of flying experience. But man, that level of responsibility is great.” [44:56]

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4. Civilian Career: Atlas Air, American Airlines, and Flight Safety Innovation

Key Segments: [45:41] – [59:39]

• Atlas Air Cargo:
  • Immediate post-retirement transition—flying 747-200s & 400s worldwide. “You’d fly everything from cars, horses, cargo, pallets, you name it.” [45:53]
• American Airlines:
  • Chose company partly for D.C. base proximity. Started as 727 flight engineer for job security (“great way to do your probationary period”), then moved to MD-80 and 737.
  • Memorable Quote: “Just kind of a workhorse airplane that’s not very automated...If you can have a switch, one switch to do one thing. Douglas, we need five switches to do one thing.” [49:11]
  • Caribbean and South American flying: “Weather was bad, a snowstorm...get to Miami, and then you’re stuck...We had two little kids at the time. ‘Hey, not gonna make it home tonight.’ ‘Well, you have fun. If I need you, I’ll call you.’” [51:25]
• Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA):
  • Led the revival of American’s FOQA program—anonymized, data-driven flight event reporting for safety ([52:06]-[59:20]).
  • Collaborated closely with pilots’ union and FAA, using data to mitigate risk (“flap overspeeds just plummeted after that” [59:11]), emphasizing a “no-fault” safety culture.
  • Notable Story: Highlighted a rare case of crew concealment after a near-accident, underscoring the usual high degree of honesty in the pilot community.

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5. Life After Aviation: Sharing the Legacy

Key Segments: [60:09] – [62:29]

• Retirement Philosophy: Retired at 60—“I want to retire at 60 because we want to travel. We love to travel, and I want to do it while I’m still able. I don’t have health issues. I’m not dead, which when you get older, that’s an issue.” [60:09]
• Community at the Naval Aviation Museum: Recruited as a volunteer (“I’m an Air Force guy. He goes, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll train you.’” [60:42]), led tours and now helps run the museum’s Blue Angels public practice events.
• Bringing it Full Circle: Finds joy in educating, inspiring, and organizing for the next generation—directly impacting 1,500–5,000 people at Blue Angels practices ([62:13]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Helicopter Training:
  “Can I write your name here in the sand with the skid? ...just incredible.” – Ken Lee, [02:53]

• On experiencing history first-hand:
  "You learn that the news doesn't always get it right because you see things with your own eyes..." – Ken Lee, [01:43]

• On moving into the tanker world at SAC:
  "They have no sense of humor. We do alert...I'm like, OK, so the tanker squatter commander...says, ‘Just go with the program.’ ...And he was true to his word." – Ken Lee, [17:15]

• On flying Air Force One:
  "You don't really think about it...after that it kind of becomes a normal event, as normal as that can be with a lot of cameras going and a lot of people around the airplane." – Ken Lee, [01:30]

• On the urgency of war:
  "I walk out of the shower...I go, invasion, eh, who cares? ...About an hour later, I cared." – Ken Lee, [22:55] / [00:00]

• On pilot authority with VIPs:
  "They trusted your experience level... we're not going to go in there for a good reason. Very rare that would happen." – Ken Lee, [44:50]

• On post-retirement fulfillment:
  "Came over initially, worked in visitor support...now it's time...to transition over to giving tours..." – Ken Lee, [60:42]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Helicopter Training and Rescue: [01:56] – [12:25]
• Transition to Fixed Wing/SAC: [12:25] – [22:01]
• Desert Storm Deployment: [22:32] – [24:48]
• Special Air Missions/Air Force One: [25:42] – [44:43]
• Atlas Air & Commercial Airline Career: [45:41] – [59:39]
• Flight Ops Quality Assurance (FOQA): [52:06] – [59:20]
• Retirement, Museum Volunteering, Blue Angels: [60:09] – [62:29]

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Summary & Takeaways

Major Ken Lee’s story is one of humility, adaptability, and lifelong service—from saving lives as a young helicopter pilot to the high-stakes, high-trust job of flying the President of the United States, and finally to mentoring the next generation. His reflections expose the complexity and humanity behind military aviation’s "machines and missions," revealing that leadership, skill, and integrity remain at the heart of safe and successful flight—military or civilian. The episode is rich with technical, operational, and personal anecdotes, offering lessons in resilience, teamwork, and the ongoing evolution of aviation.

End note:
Ken’s journey, as told here, bridges the past and the present, demonstrating that aviation legends aren’t just made in the cockpit, but in the choices, attitudes, and dedication that define an entire lifetime of flight.

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Transcript

[Major Ken Lee]

So I walk out of the shower, I'm looking at the tv, I go, invasion, eh, who cares? Arab country, eh, no big deal. I don't care. About an hour later, I cared, the wing commander comes down and goes, hey, we're going off alert. Everybody's going to go home and pack their stuff. And we are leaving rather quickly. We left very fast. Welcome to the Naval Aviation Ready Room

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

podcast where the stories, leadership and leading edge technology of naval aviation come alive.

[Major Ken Lee]

Hosted by retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes, this podcast takes you beyond mere museum artifacts as he delves into the personal stories, pivotal decisions and state of the

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

art hardware that define the world's most prolific aviation force. Major Ken Lee, United States Air Force retired, joins us today because of his unique aviation experiences. From his Air Force beginnings of flying helicopters, H1s and H3s, transitioning to fixed wing flying KC135 strata tanker and ending with the first airlift squadron, 89th airlift wing flying Boeing 757s and ultimately the queen Boeing 747 as Air Force One. But his aviation career wasn't complete as he flew the 747 again at Atlas Air, major cargo carrier, then on to American airlines flying the 727 MD 8737. That's a lot of types for 17 years. I bet that's a lot of flight hours. Ken, welcome to the ready room.

[Major Ken Lee]

Glad to be here.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Great. First question. What is it like to fly the most powerful person in the world around?

[Major Ken Lee]

It's pretty amazing. You don't really think about it. You know, you're a little nervous the first time you do it. But then after that it kind of becomes a normal event, as normal as that can be with a lot of cameras going and a lot of people around the airplane. Yeah, it's pretty cool. You get to see a lot of things. You learn that the news doesn't always get it right because you see things with your own eyes that you see later that really didn't happen that way. But okay. But yeah, it's a very, very cool experience.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Oh, I hadn't heard that about Air Force.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yes, I understand pretty recent that they're doing all the training at for record now for helicopter pilots. So you go through with an army class which was kind of different, class of 40.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

A lot of warrants.

[Major Ken Lee]

No, no, no, no. So the warrant officers were totally separate. We were going through with army officers, second and first lieutenants, a few captains sprinkled in there. The warrants went through as warrant officer candidates. So they were getting the abuse for the entire time. Now it. Right. Going through flight school, which is hard enough without putting up with that abuse. Nowadays they become warrants and then they go through flight school. So they've kind of toned it down. But they'd run by the BOQs carrying the logs on their shoulder, making lots of noise to try to wake us all up. But yes, so same class number. I think it was 8032 A and B, but B was the warrants. So 30 army officers and 10 Air Force officers. And aviation wasn't a branch in the army back then. So all of these folks were either armor officers or infantry or whatever. A couple of females sprinkled in it. I think the army had two females. We had the very first Air Force female was going to be a helicopter pilot, Lee Whittig. Now Lee Sergi. More about them later. She was in our class. No kidding. And it was great. Very competitive. Flew the TH55, the little Hughes 300 all over the place. They take it, stops it and the guy goes, just. Just do this one at a time. And they would show you things you want. Can I write your name here in the sand with skid and just incredible. So I think roughly almost 80 hours in that helic. It was great. A lot of flying, touchdown autos back then, confined areas, a little bit of formation, bunch of solos, then from that to the Huey H model Huey turbine finally. And then like a month of contact, just, you know, VFR flying. And then the instrument phase. The instrument phase was the one that kind of the washout, the make or break phase. About a month of sims and then actual hooded flying in the Huey. And as you know, there's nothing harder than flying a Huey on instruments.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Oh, I'm not a Huey guy, so I don't know. But you know, it's funny, as you say, that is. I was listening to another podcast the other day. I'm not promoting them, but it's called Opposing Bases if you've ever heard of it. That's really good because it's two guys. So both air controllers, ATC guys at one time and then one left. And now he flies for one of the major carriers as a 7576 guy. And this guy is a retired Army Chinook pilot, I think Reservist. And then now he's an air traffic controller.

[Major Ken Lee]

Right.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

And so on one of episodes today, they're talking about NDB approaches.

[Major Ken Lee]

Oh yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

I mean, dude, even I flew ndb Non directional beacon, which I don't think they even do that Anymore Took them forever.

[Major Ken Lee]

They were doing GPS overlays, but on a checkride. Still want to see you fly the ndb now they've done away with that.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Finally we did failed car to ndb.

[Major Ken Lee]

Wow.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

In the hts. I doubt they do that anymore. But yeah, I mean that's like the old school type instrument training. Basic instrument stuff you would do, right?

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. I mean no heading, hold, no nothing. It's tough in the Huey, so we lost a few people there, but I think we graduated with my entire Air Force class, which is pretty cool. So after instruments you go into what's called Nighthawk, which is all night flying. And you get goggle flying and. Not good goggles.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah, the ones that weigh 20 pounds on your head.

[Major Ken Lee]

And yeah, the old Ambus fives, they cut away the bottom. You'd have a oops. So you have a beanbag on the back of your helmet. Tough. But you'd fly with those for a month. Confined areas, formation touchdown autos. So low level autos where you're zipping along at 100ft, you rol throttle off and just land and. Craziest thing I ever did, I'd look over at the IP and his hands are in his lap like this. I'm like, man, that's trust.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah, it is.

[Major Ken Lee]

Real trust. So crazy. And then after that we did a thing called Air Force Unique where they said, okay, now we're going to take you away from the army and put the blue Air Force on you. Unlearn all the bad habits the army taught you. And that was a lot of instrument flying, some formation flying, the way the Air Force does it and a few other things. Then you graduated and it was great. So after that you go to Kirtland Air Force Base for our fleet replacement. That's where all the helicopter training was at that time. But I had about a two month waiting period. So they got me a job flying what's called flatiron, which is the white medevac helicopter at Fort Rucker. So I just co pilot, just sit there and don't touch anything. But I got to fly with them, which was really cool. You'd be out on the noe sites where the army students are down in the trees doing their noe and you're there in case somebody has an issue.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

No way. I didn't know they did something like that. Oh yeah, yeah, it's beautiful.

[Major Ken Lee]

Really? I really enjoyed it.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Palmdale, Lancaster. Oh yeah, familiar.

[Major Ken Lee]

And they were doing the first. They were doing the shuttle landings and that was the kind of the Cool thing.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Wait, wait. Edwards is always the initial place, is that correct?

[Major Ken Lee]

Yes.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Kennedy was the backup. So they were always going in there because of the big lake bed.

[Major Ken Lee]

Right? Or Holloman. Holloman in New Mexico. If the lake bed was wet when they were doing the lake bed, only they would go to Holloman. So Holloman at Hill had a detachment of Hueys that did the same thing we did. So I missed the first one. And back then it was great. The squatter commander had already called me. Hey, you know, when you get done at Curling, soon as you get here, give me a call, whatever you need. They were just fantastic. You're going to miss the first shuttle mission, but after that, you get in there, it was great. And the biggest thing about that assignment was just lots of good flying. Lots everything. Mountains, Lake Isabella, which you may even know where that is. North of China Lake.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

We'll have to look that up.

[Major Ken Lee]

We did a lot of our water training there. Water hoist stuff, the shuttle stuff, rescues.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Do you ever go fly up in the Sierras? Oh, yeah, like in the Bishop. Have you been to like Bishop? Did you ever go that area?

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

That's incredible flying up there.

[Major Ken Lee]

We did a lot of our initial goggle flying. Wasn't big in the rescue units back then. It wasn't specialized, but not rescue. But once we got our initial goggle stuff done, we would do a lot of flying up there in the mountains. Crazy.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

That's the greatest flying. That's what I'll say about Fallon, which is, I mean, I don't know distance wise, what it is from Edwards, but you know, it's 80 miles east of Reno and so you go dead out there. Then you would always take a day to go fly over Lake Tahoe and then fly around there. I mean, dude, there's no greater flying around than that.

[Major Ken Lee]

For a helicopter guy, flying was great. I mean, the weather was fantastic. We. I had really. I was sort of blessed early as a lieutenant to have really good leaders, leadership and mentors. Had a great. Two great squad of commanders who they take the new guy. It was mostly lieutenants. Okay. It was a three helicopter detachment of a squadron in Hill. So most lieutenants and then a major was the commander and then a captain is the ops officer. But most of the first and second lieutenants, couple captains, but they take you out a couple times, show you, and then they leave you alone.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Where'd you live?

[Major Ken Lee]

I lived on base in a place called Desert Villa. Oh, wow.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

On base. That's probably the best place to live.

[Major Ken Lee]

Back then it was the bachelor officers quarters and it was, let's just say it was fun and we'll leave it at that. Back in those days, the O Club was great. You go almost every night and it was fantastic.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Before we started recording, talking about rescuing people out of the mountains. How many times do you think you did that?

[Major Ken Lee]

I did it once or twice. We did a lot of rescue. So you hear all about the California rains and the mudslides. Been going on forever. When I was there, every year we would have like a two or three week period where we did nothing but rescues out of water, people getting flooded, mudslides, you name it. Rescued a dog one time, which I thought was the coolest thing. PJ went down on the hoist, grabbed his dog and drug him back up. It was fantastic. So, yeah, a lot of that. We did medevacs all the time down to Loma Linda. They had a neonatal unit there.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah. Northern la.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yep. And then there was a recompression chamber at Long beach, so Edwards had an altitude chamber and they would bend people every now and then in that. And we would have taken down a Long beach to the chamber. And that was kind of fun because you'd fly down over the Cajon Pass and it would be fogged in. You'd have to do an ILS in the Norton or March and then break off, get on the highways and kind of low level your way into the helipad at Loma Linda. It was fun.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah. I mean that, that right there, there's truly helicopter flying.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, right.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Use my instruments to get me somewhere and then fly 501 special VFR under the SCUD layer to get somewhere.

[Major Ken Lee]

Right. Oh, it was awesome. We got to land. So during the work up to the Los Angeles Olympics and the day kind of escapes me a little bit. We lent a couple helicopters to the FBI, so they were going to. Yeah, we don't need your help. We just want your helicopters.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

What are we, just a bunch of scrubs, I guess.

[Major Ken Lee]

Right, Right. So we got to go down and land at the LA police helipad on top of a building down there. And that was really cool just to see that. Yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Through la?

[Major Ken Lee]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Downtown Los Angeles.

[Major Ken Lee]

Well, they had a whole helicopter system on the highways. I don't know if they still have that or not, but kind of a helicopter route structure through the highways. They have one in D.C. now, which has sadly been in the news for other reasons, but LA had one of those too, that may not be around anymore.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah, When I was a FRS instructor as a lieutenant in San Diego, we would use the VFR section on the backside.

[Major Ken Lee]

You'd flip it over. Right.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

And you could essentially what we called the Disneyland route. And yeah, you just climb up. I mean, it's pretty high. We're tough for a helicopter. We're talking like, I think it was 6 or 7,000ft.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah, it's uncomfortably high.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah, very. You're blocked like a 500 foot hard altitude on both sides and you have to talk to anybody.

[Major Ken Lee]

So we had a helicopter all cocked, ready to go, loaded up with the gear and we had a klaxon.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Is that.

[Major Ken Lee]

Oh, yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Like nuclear bomb type stuff, right?

[Major Ken Lee]

Pretty much. They pushed button and wherever you are, you run out. If you're on the alert crew, get in a helicopter and off you go. Because it was the test center.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Oh, yeah, right. So if someone's going up, like, think the right stuff. Right. Chuck yeager out there. Jack7F105.

[Major Ken Lee]

It happened once when I was not there. One of the B1s had an issue and crashed. And I was out at Kirtland going through a school and missed it. But we went down and covered a George Air Force base was the F4 wild weasel FRS. So they had issues all the time. So we get scrambled to go pick somebody up. Who judge pick somebody up for that? Yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Well, it sounds like you definitely remember your helicopter time very fondly. I know it's because it's your first one, right? So you remember that? I mean, I can remember back too back. But I can't remember what I did like a week ago. But I can remember what happened 25 years ago pretty clearly. But then you made the switch. Right. And we're going to call it from going from the dark side to the light side. Are you going from the light side to the dark side here? But then you find a fixed wing transition. So tell me about why you did that.

[Major Ken Lee]

So how did that happen? So after Edwards, I went to Andrews. Andrews had a helicopter special duty assignment which did some VIP airlift. But they had a classified mission. They had Hueys and H3s. And that was great, a lot of good flying there. But the squadron commander there had been what's called mpc, our version of a detailer from working here at the museum. I speak some Navy now, so great guy, another great mentor, Jay Messenger. And he called a couple of us in and said, hey, look, if you ever want to get ahead in this man's Air Force, you're going to have to go fly fix wing yeah, because

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

at the time, the helo community was right down here. They were not leading the Air Force.

[Major Ken Lee]

It's always the way it's been. You and I have talked about that previously.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

This is the Navy, too.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah, you kind of get no respect, but that's okay. So he said, if you guys want to do that, they were sort of drawing down the helicopter force because the quote unquote, Nighthawk never materialized. And then the F117 community stole the name.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Oh, yeah, that's right.

[Major Ken Lee]

They said, no, you helicopter guys, you can't have that anymore. So they took the Nighthawk name. So he said, if you guys want to go fix me, I can make that happen. So several. God, I think six or seven of us said, yeah, we'd like to do that. So the way they did it back in those days, they initially started doing it at Randolph Air Force Base, which was air training commands, basically, where they trained all the instructors who were going to go out to the different upt bases and then went on to the T38. Now, the T38 was a lot more difficult jet to fly. The tweet was, frankly, easy. I did my instrument check after about, I want to say, three or four instrument rides, and a guy giving me my ride said, wow, you're really good at this. Says, yeah, this is way easier than a Huey on instruments.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

I can just trim it and it just flies itself.

[Major Ken Lee]

Right. And by then you knew how to fly an ndb. So some old army dac, I was having trouble. He goes, look, just push the head, pull the tail. Okay? It's that simple. So whatever course you want, pull the tail to it or push the head to it. So instruments are pretty easy in the tweet. Then we get to the T38, and that was about six months, and we got pretty much every single ride.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Okay. I mean, high performance jet, for sure.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. Difficult airplane to fly.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Stubby wings, unstable.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yep. Well, and the way they flew it, I think, was a little nutty. They coming around what they call the final turn. They want you to pull it right to what's called the tickle. So you're right at a stall buffet. You feel the tickle of the wing. So you're max performing the airplane around the final turn to land. And they want you to land on Brick one, not short and then trying to land on Brick one. Guys that land short all the time in the. In the overrun. Not a good thing. But, yeah, really fun airplane. You know, we got solo time in it, and we could pretty much pick any Airplane we want. So it was fun. So went up to Griffiths. Oh, and the faa, she told him, okay, he's going to Griffiths to go, well, we really need you here. We can't let you go. She goes, okay, that's fine. I quit. Oh, don't quit. So as soon as she threatened to quit, they changed their mind and sent her up to New York. But it's a shame she had to do that. Yeah, no, you're right. But it's a funny story we tell now. And she went on to a long career in the FAA and retired and.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

No kidding.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah, it's great. So we get to Griffis and same kind of thing. Great. Squadron Commander Griffiths was a B52 and Tanker Base 1. I think we had one tanker squad. And we later got another one From Pease and one B52 squadron, but another good squad. A commander. I come in, he goes, hey, I know your story. I know you, helicopter guy. You're doing this, you gotta be a co pilot.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Your reputation has preceded you.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. And he's like, look, I know that's kind of tough, but just work with me here. And it was sac, Strategic Air Command.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Okay. So those who don't know, Navy wise, kind of just talk about. Not the issue of the history, because I kind of know a little bit of it. So, like, the culture of SAC compared to maybe like Air Combat Command. Right.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. Real different from what I was in. So first the helicopters were in what used to be called TAC Tactical Air Command, which is now acc. Then they went to Mac, Military Airlift Command.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Then they went to FSOC for a little bit. And later on then they go back. They've been going back and forth all

[Major Ken Lee]

the time, but Mac was a lot more laid back than Seth. Yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Mobility. Yes.

[Major Ken Lee]

If you've ever seen the movie.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Oh, I know exactly what you're thinking. The one with the bomb.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yes.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

And how to love the bomb.

[Major Ken Lee]

How I learned to love the bomb.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yes.

[Major Ken Lee]

It'll come back to me. Anyway, it's just like that. They have no sense of humor. We do alert. And we are studying Russian fighters and bombers and where all the missiles are. And I'm like, okay, so the tanker squad of Commander Mike Link, still remember, Great. Guy says, look, just go with the program. I will get you upgraded quickly. You'll be an aircraft commander, you'll be an instructor. You'll be right where you ought to be. But just play the game. Be the. Do the program. And I did. And he was true to his word.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

How long did that last as you as a co pilot.

[Major Ken Lee]

So I was a co pilot about six months. That wasn't bad. And just enough to learn, get comfortable flying the tanker and then upgraded aircraft commander and about six months later got to upgrade to instructor and yeah, loved it. We had a models the old Water Wagon 135. So you may not have ever heard that term. No. So this was back when man burned water to make jet engines more powerful. So we had demineralized water tanks and they would spray water into the engines to give them more thrust. Google it. You think I'm crazy here?

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Okay, what's it called again?

[Major Ken Lee]

You said it's called the KC 135 Water Wagon.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Water wagon, yep. I'm going to look this up afterwards.

[Major Ken Lee]

So the very first version of the KC135 that Boeing built, they put these water tanks had to be demineralized so it didn't gum up the blades with minerals. And putting water makes the air denser, I guess and gives the engines more power. So you had 102 minutes of water. So you would, when you were doing what's called an emergency war, orders takeoff so you're heavier than you're supposed to be. You use the water and it gives you more thrust and it makes just completely black smoke. And you're doing these minimum interval takeoffs.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Just like the B52.

[Major Ken Lee]

Oh, exactly. Oh, it's incredible.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

I mean that thing puts out what

[Major Ken Lee]

you're taking off in formation, four of you and you literally there's like three of you on the Runway and you can't see the guy in front of you for the black smoke.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

You would take off as a four ship and KC135.

[Major Ken Lee]

Oh yeah, at intervals because you want to get the whole thing up and moving right after the bomber. So the bombers would take off first and then we would take off, get in front of them and then refuel.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

This is all like exercise and alerts you would do right with SAC or oh my gosh, the Claxton day and

[Major Ken Lee]

night and then go on Claxton to go off. Sometimes you just go to the aircraft and you decode a message every time. Sometimes it would be go to the aircraft, start the engines. Sometimes start the engines in taxi, sometimes rarely take off. You didn't want to ever launch an alert force, but you would do it with a different non alert aircraft. But funny story there, you never taxied first on alert because you wanted to make sure the message was not decoded improperly. So you always waited for somebody else to move before you would move.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

But then that guy waited for somebody else. Or that guy waited for somebody else.

[Major Ken Lee]

Exactly, because it happened all the time. So it's a crew of four. Pilot, co pilot, navigator, and then a boom operator, slash load master, but boom operator mostly. And the navigator was in charge of decoding the message. And always you're kind of sitting there looking at him, okay, what are we doing? What are we doing? But you never ever wanted to move first.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

So was the navigator, or would you guys swap as aircraft? But no, I'm saying as mission commander. Were there. There are navs who were mission commanders though, too.

[Major Ken Lee]

No, not usually. AC was usually always in charge.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Oh, okay. That's interesting, because in some instances of like old P3 days or P8 days. Right. You could have the navigator, NFO, be the mission commander tactically and not necessarily the aircraft commander do that.

[Major Ken Lee]

No, if we did some big four ships, you'd have one of the senior ACs being the mission commander for the whole thing. But usually the navs didn't do that. So alert was doing that. Well, back to the water wagon. So One of the Habs jobs was to call 110, which meant 110 seconds on the water.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Oh, then you have to shut it off?

[Major Ken Lee]

No, it shut itself off. But you were so heavy, you had to the flaps up so you could accelerate before the water ran out. So you had to use that extra thrust from the water to accelerate, get enough flying speed, get the flaps up, and get clean before the water ran out. It really made things a lot tougher than they needed to be. It was a hard airplane to fly. So there was a huge sort of deceleration when the water ran out.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

At what altitude?

[Major Ken Lee]

Usually, I don't know, a thousand feet. Pretty low, because you're accelerating to get the flaps up. So you get this big rush and usually you look at the navigate. Oh, yeah. 110 on the water. Thanks. A little late on. You're not doing us any favors, man. Yeah, but then we eventually got rid of those and got what are called R models, which are still flying today with the big CFM 56s, I was wondering.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah, when did that go away?

[Major Ken Lee]

Much better performance. Much safer if you lost the water on takeoff. Like if something went wrong, lost it on one side or lost all of it. It was like more than losing an engine, the thrust loss. It was crazy aircraft to fly. Everybody thinks it's a 707, but it's sort of like a poor man 707.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah, I read that it's a little shorter.

[Major Ken Lee]

A little shorter. Doesn't have all the backup systems. It's a poor man's aircraft, but a very great performer. Still there today. Yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

And being replaced now by the KC46.

[Major Ken Lee]

So we got our models. We were one of the first bases to get those. So there was a period I was flying the A and the R, and so we're on alert. Another one more funny Griffith story. So we're on alert August 2nd, when Saddam invades Kuwait. And I'm the senior AC on alert, which means I'm in charge of the tanker force. And the only benefit to that, you get your own room.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Oh, at the queue to stay at. Or in the squattering.

[Major Ken Lee]

Oh, in the alert facility. We had literally a building right out on the flight line. Pretty nice chow hall and all that. But I get my own room, which is great. So I walk out of the shower, I'm looking at the tv, I go, invasion, Eh, who cares? Arab country. Yeah. No big deal. I don't care. About an hour later, I care. Forced.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

You're forced to care.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. The wing commander comes down and goes, hey, we're going off alert. Everybody's gonna go home and pack their stuff. And we are leaving rather quickly. Wow.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

No kidding. You guys were turned.

[Major Ken Lee]

We left very fast because we had the R models and they were in demand because of the big fuel loads they could carry. So we went through a mobility line, got all the shots. And remember how they used to tell you when you get all these shots, oh, you can't fly for 12 hours? Yeah. No.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Were you flying right away?

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Kiddo, I need you to get on that airplane now.

[Major Ken Lee]

Right in the seats. So did a. I think it was 12 hours and change flight from Griffis. We were in, like, the first or second four ship over to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, direct.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah. Did you drag the B52s?

[Major Ken Lee]

No, we got over there. They weren't over there yet. We were going over support F15s. So they sent F15s out of Langley kind of as quickly as they can to get over there. And we were there to support them, but we moved all over the place and ended up coming home about six or seven months later. But got a lot of flying time. Yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

I assume before that you were still flying all over the world, right? I mean, yeah, we would do deployments, go to like the UK Mildenhall or something like that.

[Major Ken Lee]

Mildenhall or Fairford, but usually Fairford deployment, what they call the tanker task force. And then you spit out all over Europe Depending on what they needed you to do. I went to Ancillik, Turkey, quite a bit. Oh, yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Huge Air Force base there.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yep. And then if you were going to the Pacific, you would go to Korea, I think. We didn't get a lot of Pacific stuff being an east coast base or Diego Garcia, another garden spot. I've never.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

I've never been there. I've actually had three friends who have been the Navy base commander. Diego, you go there for a year unaccompanied. Yeah. And they rotate through pretty quick.

[Major Ken Lee]

Rough place, but strategically important. Oh, yeah. Very, very tr. True. So, yeah, a lot of flying, a lot of those debts, and then a lot of stateside stuff. A lot of ARS at night. And then Griffiths was one of the last B52 bases to have the air launch cruise missile, the nuclear version. So they would do, like they called it a surety exercise every six months. It was always in the middle of the night. And a gazillion standbys because there's a lot of eyes on. Let's make sure this works. Good. So the buff launches, and then we launch and refuel them. Then they go do their thing, come back, we'll go back in the pattern, do some stuff, and then refuel them again. Crazy. So, yeah, a lot of flying time. It was good to me. I got a lot of flying time, which enabled me to get enough time to apply to Andrews. Yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

So let's move on to that. So why then going to do that special mission.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yes.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

I would assume that's what it is, a screening process to get there.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yes. So Griffiths was going to close, and rumors were flying around. That was when the BRAC was coming around, and I said to my wife, Janice, we got to get out of here. We got to find something to do. And I had friends at Andrews by then. One was the vice wing commander. And I called him up, I said, hey, I'm thinking about applying to Andrews. And I had a lot of flying time. I didn't have as much as they like. I had the minimum, but the minimum was 2,500 hours being instructor in a heavy airplane.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Oh, so they weren't really counting your helo time, per se.

[Major Ken Lee]

No, but I had enough fixed wing time by then. But, yeah, you know, the old lack of respect for the helicopter, because that's really. We don't care about that time. You know, you've been there.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yes.

[Major Ken Lee]

But I called him up, Jay messenger, and he said, yeah, I think you'd be competitive. Go ahead and apply. So you had. You applied you had to get released from your major command. So SAC and I went into the wing commander. Great guy. He knew me because I was in standeval by the standards by then, your version of natops. He goes, yep, I'll sign off on that. So then send him a package which is basically all your efficiency reports, every check ride you've ever taken from Inception. Yet they got all my helicopter records, everything. Two pictures, a face shot, a full face shot, a rec letter, I think from your wing commander maybe getting that wrong, and send the package down. And then from that they interview about 30 people. And I got called down for an interview. And the way it was explained later, after I was there is if we call you down for an interview, we accept your qualified flying credentials wise. Now we're trying to see if you're somebody we want to hang out with because they do some long trips. So got through the interview and at that time they had C12s and they trained attaches that were going to embassies. So you could go be a C12 pilot and then you did your tenants there. And then you could go into one of the two squadrons there, the 1st Airlift Squadron, or the 99th. The 1st had 707s at the time. They had just gotten rid of their 135 cargo aircraft. And then the 99th, which flew DC9s and Gulfstreams. So I interview, go back home to Griffis, and about a week later got a call from the squadron commander. He goes, hey, we'd like to hire you to the C12. And then after that bring me into the first airlift squad. And I'm like, great. I mean, you're not going to say no, right?

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah.

[Major Ken Lee]

But between the time I left Griffis, this was in 92. I want to say I got hired in like April or May of 92. And then we PCs in August, they got the C12 was going away. So they said, we're going to bring you right to the first Airlift Squad. And I'm like, I'm great with that. So get there. I was going to go and fly the 707. So the way that works is you go down to at that time, the old Pan Am training facility in Miami.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Was it still Pan Am?

[Major Ken Lee]

No, Pan Am didn't exist, but this was their building. And it was still called the Pan Am Flight Academy or Training Academy. But they had the only 707 Sims that were kind of viable for us to use. So you go down there, our instructors are being the first airlift squadron. And you go through About a month long training course to fly the 707 and did that. And then you come back and you do a bunch of local rides with instructors and get upgraded and then you're a new guy. And a little bit of an adjustment because you were an examiner instructor at your old squad and now, now you're

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

a co pilot again, right?

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. Now we don't want to hear from you unless we tap you on the shoulder, which is great. And I didn't have any trouble with that. Some guys kind of struggle with that a little bit. Didn't bother me at all. And you fly everybody but the President. So the Vice President on down. The eight guys at that time that flew the President and the 747, they had their own little building that was called the Presidential Pilot's Office. There were four full time guys up there and then for what they called augmentees. So that's all eight pilots. There's another story about that. Oh my gosh. That I'll get to in a little bit. It's not enough in my opinion. It wasn't enough. So the augmentees are guys that are in your squadron. Okay. And you keep a qualification, so you keep two. You're qualified in the 747, but then you're also qualified in the 707 or the DC9 or the Gulf Stream. So if the President's going somewhere that the 747 can't fit, you take one of those other airplanes.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Did that happen a lot?

[Major Ken Lee]

Oh, it happened more than, you know, all the time. So one of the guys who was an augmentee was my initial instructor in the 707, Wayne Williams. He might have been a full time guy by then, but really good guy. And we would just go out and beat up the pattern. Just very patient. And when he retired a couple years later, I ended up getting drafted up there. And you don't apply, you don't do anything, you just get.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

So could you stay in flying the other ones and never move up into those eight slots?

[Major Ken Lee]

Yes. And unfortunately a lot of people did that. No way. Yeah. And at that it went through a kind of a growing pains process. There was a time when you could go to Andrews and fly any of those special aircraft and you could stay forever and nobody bothered you. And you know, you said, look, I don't want to get promoted, I just want to stay here. That's fine, stay here and fly. Because you went through a fairly rigorous security clearance process. And once they do that, it's like, yeah, we don't want to do it again. You can stay and you know the mission. But while I was there, they were kind of going through a. Well, we need to stop majors and lieutenant colonels from flying and grow the youngsters and let's send these guys out to maybe not so desirable assignments. No kidding. Yeah. But I managed. At that time, I just started to get pulled up as an augmented Air Force One. So I escaped that fate, which was great. But yeah, it's an interesting place. And then when you get picked to go fly Air Force One, you go through another security process, clearance process, where you get what's called a Yankee White clearance. And I think they still call it that today. Have you met Shep Brown, another one of our volunteers here? He flew Marine One. He's somebody you need to interview down the road. And he still remembers it as being called the Yankee White. But another process. And then they actually go out and interviewed my neighbors. They really do a background. So once you get that clearance and it took about a year, you can be next to the President unescorted. Oh, wow.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

No, that's what it gets you.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah, the Secret Service signs off on it because there's always a Secret Service guy around. If you don't have that, you may not see him, but they're always there. So that took a while. But back to the squatter.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

What was your time frame here?

[Major Ken Lee]

So I got there in 92.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Okay, so end of Bush, or is it Clinton?

[Major Ken Lee]

End of Bush. The beginning of Clinton. And I think I got. I went to 747 School at United in 96. So I went through the regular process. Co pilot, aircraft commander, instructor. And again, you fly everybody but the President. Sort of the unwritten rules. There was an instructor on every mission, not necessarily the aircraft commander, but you're going to have an instructor as part of the crew. Usually always flew with three pilots, what we called augmented because you're flying some long crazy days you guys would rotate through, right? Yes, long days. I mean, some of the stuff we did back then, I'm not sure you get away with now with risk assessment and everything else. Some long days. So you'd fly, you know, Vice President always had to be an instructor in command, but sec State missions were fascinating. Secretary of Defense and then codells, congressional delegations. I mean, these were all high profile missions, but they're probably the easiest because things wouldn't change. In other words, you get on the road and you're going to the places you are expecting to go. Sex states always changed. I mean, you really had to be on your feet. And it was kind of a good deal for the pilots. So the pilots did all the flying planning.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Do you guys have navigators?

[Major Ken Lee]

Yes. Navigators, yes. And the navigators did all the, basically communication with the embassies.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

They didn't do the flight planning.

[Major Ken Lee]

They did some of the flight planning, but we did a lot. We would do the nuts and bolts of what's the airport have? Okay, where are we going? Can they support us? Do they have ground power use? Do they have fuel? Do they have water for the aircraft? Is it potable water? We have to be careful about drinking it. Can they take the airplanes the weight bearing of the Runway? Because we went to some really off the wall places in Russia, China, you name it.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Interesting consideration.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. And you really had to dig to get a lot of that information because you just couldn't find some of that stuff on the Russian airports. So we had a pretty good. And this is way before, obviously, the Internet was any good.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

In email, you're calling, you're fine trying to find phone numbers in the back of a pub somewhere.

[Major Ken Lee]

Right. Call the embassy Jepsens. We had a whole room of Jepsen approach plates and information and we had books of information for airports folks had been to. So if you went to an airport, you were expected to do a whole debrief sheet about here's what's good, here's what's bad. Trip report. Exactly. So that was helpful. But the Navs did all the communication with the embassies because they had to get our diplomatic clearances. You just can't fly through some countries firm without clearance, even if you're Air Force One, Right? Yep. Gotta have a clearance, a diplomatic clearance. And this is way before email. So they're doing all this with the old message traffic traffic. And just filling out the message traffic forms was a traumatic event. If you remember any of that, you've been around long enough to remember that.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Oh, yeah.

[Major Ken Lee]

And then send it to the embassy with what we call our list of demands.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

List of demands. That sounds great.

[Major Ken Lee]

And you always try to, you know, the guys that train me to do it say, hey, look, once we get into this call the embassy guys direct the dao, the Air Force rep, and say, look, you guys need anything, food, whatever, stuff for kids, babies, whatever. And that would always sort of help put you in a good light because you're really interrupting life for them. Yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Bringing the president over, then it disrupts

[Major Ken Lee]

everybody on some of these trips. Yeah. Even secretary of State. And those missions were a lot of just Disruptive for them and having to basically stop what they're doing every day and deal with all that. But yeah, I enjoyed. I flew Warren Christopher a lot, if you remember who he was. He was great. Secretary of State.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

That's right, yeah. Who was Sec Def during that time. I remember. I can see his face with Cohen.

[Major Ken Lee]

Cohen. And then William Perry. Dr. Perry. He was really good. But Christopher was great. Just a kind, nice guy. And some of the trips you got and just then having to. Once you get on the road, I mean, they're trying to put out fires wherever and. Okay, now we're not going here. Here. He always had a staff guy. He wouldn't come to us and tell us this, but his staff would come. Okay, now we've got to go here instead. And so then you're on the road and you're having to redo dip clearances times, hotels, shop. I mean, the flight attendants. I'll get into the crew makeup in a minute. They usually would get all the food before we left. Big coolers on the airplane. Air Force One had what are called chillers, refrigerators. But you try to get as much of that in the States because it's a known entity as opposed to buying something on the account economy in another country. So just a lot of moving parts with sex dates. Again, Codell's were easy fun.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

So would you fly the 707 with everyone else? And it was only the 74 for the vice president and the president.

[Major Ken Lee]

Vice president, no. Only the president.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Vice president didn't fly in some four.

[Major Ken Lee]

No, sir. The 747s, the two are dedicated just to the presidents, period. In fact, Vice President Gore tried to get it when he was campaigning at the end of Clinton's second term. They basically turned him down. Wasn't very happy about that. So you get a 707. I mean, they're pretty airplanes, but they're a lot of work to keep them flying.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

So you did eight years there, is that right? And then retired out of there.

[Major Ken Lee]

Retired out of there and went to work almost immediately for Atlas.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah, tell me about them. Because I actually, I have a couple buddies who do fly for them. I don't know if they fly the 74 per se. And they're former helicopter guys who then I think went maybe regionals for a little bit, got picked up and then transitioned to Atlas. And so in the cargo world, there's

[Major Ken Lee]

a whole community out there that basically takes helicopter guys and gets them up to speed, fix them. There's like one of our tour guides here, Rusty Berry, I think, does some of that. That's a great thing. So back when I went to work for Atlas, it was only 747s. They had two hundreds and four hundreds. So the Air Force One aircraft are literally some of the last 747 to two hundreds to come off the assembly line. The 400 was being built, and I think the Air Force looked at that, but then decided, ah, too new in aircraft. Plus, we have navigators and engineers, and we're kind of used to doing business that way.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

I got you. And they don't have that on the new 740. That's just two pilots or three pilots.

[Major Ken Lee]

Two pilots. And I never. So I flew the 707. I flew the C32 or the 75 simulator. But those, they came too late. I had already retired before the actual airplane showed up. But we didn't kick the engineers off completely. They kept them as. They don't call them crew chiefs, they call them something else. But they're there to basically take care of the airplane, fuel it, lock it up. When I was there, the flight attendants did not operate the doors. Only our flight engineers could operate the doors.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

They're big doors.

[Major Ken Lee]

They're worried about blowing slides. Oh, okay. Yeah, you got to be careful about disarming the slide and all that. And I don't know how they do business now in the C32s. It's been, geez, almost 26 years now. But they do fly with some kind of crew chief, I'm sure. So going back to the crew, I get to Atlas in a minute. It's usually three pilots, two navigators.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

This is on Air Force One, Air

[Major Ken Lee]

Force one, or the 707. Three pilots, two navigators, two flight engineers. Usually on the 707, I think it was two or three. We called them radio operators old school, but they prefer the name communication systems operators. And then four security police that guard secure the airplane. Flight attendants in the range of 6 to 7, depending on how big the quote unquote party was. And these are not your normal flight attendants like you have on an airline. They're buying the food, they're cooking the food, they're loading luggage, they're cleaning the airplane, they're doing everything. They work really hard. Air Force One's a little different. They have more CSOs, more radio operators, and they also have two crypto maintenance technicians.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Sure.

[Major Ken Lee]

Handle all that. So we have so much. The whole upper deck is cockpit crew, rest area, communications. And that's the whole purpose of the airplane is being Able to communicate securely. But there's so much crypto gear that doesn't always work correctly. You got to have guys to basically repair that all the time.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

In flight.

[Major Ken Lee]

In flight. And we carry spare parts between. There's always two airplanes. You only see one on the news, but there's always a spare close by. There's usually more if they're doing other different things. But between the two 747s or a 747 and a C32 backup, now they've got enough spare parts to fix pretty much anything that's going to break. So the maintenance guys are very good at keeping up with the commonly failing items. So we carry a lot of that stuff. I think we carried one nose tire. We carried a couple main tires. Wow. Yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

You don't want to blow one of those out.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Same thing with the 707 to some degree. One of the trips I did in Spain, I flew over as a co pilot on the 747 and then took a 707 down to Granada to President Clinton and his wife to have dinner with the king. And we were just going to fly down. They were going to go to dinner. We were going to fly home. Well, while we're there, we had an engine issue. And overseas, we're flying in a suit and tie, not our blue uniforms. You fly in that in a suit and tie all the time. Flight suits were not. Pretty much. Didn't wear a flight suit too much there. Blue uniform.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Your dress uniform.

[Major Ken Lee]

Dress uniform. Suit and tie overseas. So when we had this engine issue. So the Clintons are off eating dinner, and my two flight engineers are literally on top of the wing with their coats off, ties undone, working on this engine. It's crazy. And got it repaired in time to where? Never knew a thing. They show back up, we go back up. I think we're in Madrid and drop them off. It's crazy. That's a great story. When you're flying Air Force One, you get a lot of support. You have advanced agents that go out looking at the airport itself. There's no guessing on where you're going as far as the airport. Any questions you have, you get them answered. Squad are flying. Not so much. You're kind of on your own. Even Air Force Twos, you're on your own. You don't really have advances. They may. I think they started advancing Air Force Twos, but I'm not sure. But, yeah, you're out there on your own, hoping the support goes good and you're depending on the embassy to take care of that stuff for you. Again, our list of demands. Here's what we need and kind of why we need it. If you divert the technique I got taught. So coming back into the States one time, we had an issue and we had to divert into Griffis. And we have great calm on the 707. So I said to the radio operator, hey, call the command post of Griffis, tell them who we are. Say, I want to speak to the wing commander. Go right to the top and just say, hey, here's who we are. Sorry to bother you. This is who we have on board. And really, truly, you're sorry to bother the guy, but they want to hear from you. They don't want to hear secondhand. He's about to get this invasion again with the Secretary of State on board, and you want it to go well, I think we diverted in there for an engine issue or something, but that always worked really good. We always got the support we needed.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah. So did you feel like since you're almost kind of under microscope, you have all this. But as an aircraft commander, do you feel like your ability to make decisions was less than when you were flying a Huey doing a rescue?

[Major Ken Lee]

Not at all.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Okay.

[Major Ken Lee]

They were very good about that. Only diverted on Air Force One one time when I was flying, we were going to Aviano and the president was going to get off in Aviano, get on a C17, which was properly armored up, and fly into Sarajevo, I think, during the Bosnia deal. And that was kind of the mode of operation back then. And we couldn't get into Aviano due to weather, so we had to divert to Frankfurt. Wow.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

The weather must have been really bad.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. Fog or something. Really bad. Well, it depends on where you're going. That airplane can fly a Cat 3 approach, basically an auto land and no visibility, but you got to have the Runway and the equipment, and Aviano didn't have that. But Fox, we had to divert into Frankfurt, which was a big deal. And the Secret Service hates that because they don't have all their prearranged things going on there. But the other advantage you're doing it is sort of a surprise. So bad people don't have the opportunity.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

How they're going to know.

[Major Ken Lee]

Right, Exactly. So zipped in there, got gas, weather cleared at Aviana, went back there and it all worked out well. And the same thing on the 707, but didn't get any pushback from anybody. Got to go, divert, and off we go. And never encountered that on any.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

No one came up to you, the cockpit and go, hey, what are you doing? We need to get in here.

[Major Ken Lee]

Here.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

You know, this is utmost importance.

[Major Ken Lee]

Nope. They trusted your experience level and whatever. We're not going to go in there for a good reason. Very rare that would happen.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

You're not a colonel at this time, so you're a major, which is awesome. With a lot of flying experience. But man, that level of responsibility is great.

[Major Ken Lee]

Usually the military aids would got it. You know, they were all. A lot of them were pilots no matter what service, so they didn't get it. Some of the staff, the civilians sometimes would get a little grumpy maybe, why can't we do this? But they never heard any pushback ever. There was a whole office at the Pentagon called cvam, Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force for Special Air Missions that sort of parceled out all the airplanes and figured out who was going to get what airplane. The 99th got some different stuff with their Gulf streams and their C9s, but they kept a lot of heat off of us too.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Oh, that's nice.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

So then, like I said, flew for Atlas about a year in the 7 4.

[Major Ken Lee]

No. So Atlas, I went to work right away for them because I had 747 type rating already and they were great. They let me fly the 400 which was a blast.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

You're based out of Miami?

[Major Ken Lee]

I was based out of New York. Canada. Yeah. Okay.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Thought maybe you would have gone down to. Did Was they have a base there now?

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

In Miami.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. I think we just had the New York base back then. It was fairly new. So we went to training in Minneapolis at the old Northwest facilities. Got our 747 training there and then went to New York and they would deadhead us. Sometimes you'd fly an airplane. I think my very first trip, I got deadheaded on British Airways over to London and had to take a cab to Stansted to meet an airplane to do all over. And you go everywhere, Hong Kong, all over the world. It was great. And the four hundreds, what they call the nose loaders. So the nose of that airplane would open and they could shove stuff in that way. So they were really in demand. I mean, you'd fly everything from cars, horses, cargo, pallets, you name it. And it was very different. A lot of very different from the Air Force I was in. Not the glamorous lifestyle, but great, good flying, good people. And one of my old ops officers at Andrews, Tom Jackson, still around, another great guy. He was at Atlas As a fairly senior captain. So while I was at Atlas, I applied to American Southwest and Delta.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

It started to hear back, what year is this?

[Major Ken Lee]

This is 2000. So I went on terminal leave in 99. And then 2000. I started applying all these other places while I was working for Atlas. And I started hearing back and I went to Tom. I'm like, hey, I felt bad. I've only been at Atlas less than six months, but I'm getting calls. He goes, look, if you had the chance to go fly for one of those airlines, you should take it. Just be a gentleman about it. Go to the chief pilot in New York, give him notice, say, how long do you need? And I did all that would. Could not have been more gracious. They were great. So went to work for America. And I sort of picked based on what I thought the pot of gold at the end of the thing was going to be, which is a crapshoot anyway. You have no idea. And American, I could be based in dc. We were living in DC at the time, still. My wife, we had come back to D.C. so when we came back, she went to work at national as a controller. And by then it moved up to Baltimore and she retired out of Baltimore. She loved it up there. So went to work for American on the 727 as a flight engineer, which was great.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

As an FE.

[Major Ken Lee]

Oh, yeah, really? Yep. So about half our class got 727s and about half our class got the MD80, the Super 80. I call it the not so Super 80. Just kind of a tough little airplane. But I had guys tell me, look, for your first year of probation, they can fire you if they don't like the way you look. I mean, so go sit on the engineer's panel. You can't get in a lot of trouble back there. And it's a great way to do your probationary period. I thought it was great advice. So I went to the panel. I loved it. I didn't really understand what my Air Force engineers have been telling me was so tough about. Was kind of great. And you know how it is when you're. When you're watching two guys up front fly and things are going badly and you can just see from your seat back here what to fix. You're just sitting back there in the engineers chair and going, hey, guys, why don't you do this? It was great. So I ended up doing that for two years. I could have left at the end of my probationary period, but they were starting to get rid of them out of the airline. So I was getting more and more senior. So I started flying with a couple guys I really liked. John Smith and Keith Furman. Keith's now the director of Flight for New York, a great guy. And so we would fly together every month, and we basically get the trips we wanted. It was a black Keith. I ended up flying my very last flight at America. He was the chief pilot in D.C. and I said, hey, man, I'm going to build my last trip. I want you to go with me. And he says, I'd love to. We had a good time, so stayed on the 727, then went to the Super 80, the Nazo Super 80. And it's just fine. It's just kind of a workhorse airplane that's not very automated. Still flew ndbs in it. Got a lot. And it's typical Douglas production. If you can have a switch, one switch to do one thing. Douglas, we need five switches to do one thing. So moving levers around, doing all this? Oh, yeah. It had a pneumatic air system on it. We had to do all this lever pushing around. Just crazy stuff. But flew that for a while. Then the 737 was kind of new to America. And when I could go to that, I did a lot of the old head America pilots, like, look, when a new airplane comes, stay off it for a while till we see all the issues it's going to have. But I'm like, nah, I want to go to it. It. So I went to it, and it was great. Pretty much stayed on that the whole career.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

And then you weren't a flight engineer, though?

[Major Ken Lee]

Oh, no. Yeah. That airplane didn't have an engineer.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Right. First officer, then upgraded to captain after that.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah, yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

And you're a domestic guide the whole time.

[Major Ken Lee]

Domestic. We did a lot of Caribbean and they started doing South America, but I retired by then, so I did a lot of Caribbean flying out of Miami, which was great. My wife wasn't so happy about it.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Were you based out of DCA still?

[Major Ken Lee]

So DCA had Caribbean trips through Miami. They don't really do that anymore, I don't think. So we go to Miami, then go to Aruba or wherever, spend the night, and then back to Miami, up to dc. So during the winter, if the weather was bad, a snowstorm, we get to Miami, and then you're stuck. Okay. So I call her. We had two little kids at the time. Hey, not gonna make it home tonight. Great. Well, you have fun. If I need you, I'll call you.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

That's the Phone call that every spouse dreads, right? You're supposed to be back this day. I'm not gonna be able to make it.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah, not so much, but, yeah, I really enjoyed Americans, so stayed based in D.C. almost the whole time. And I was about 2012, ish, not as early in that. Anyway. They had had a program going called Foqua Flight Operations Quality Assurance. It's huge now. Back then, it was fairly new and it had sort of died. Wasn't really being used properly. So they. A guy came to me, Brian beach, goes, hey, we'd like you to go kind of revive the FOCA program. And I. I thought about it. I'm like, yeah, not really interested.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

And how far into American are you right now? How many years?

[Major Ken Lee]

So I got hired there in 2000. I want to say it was 2010 or 11.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

So you were a captain already on the 7 3?

[Major Ken Lee]

No, no, just the first officer. Lowly first officer. So I go, nah, I don't really want to do that. So he goes away, comes back as, what would it take? I said, okay, so I'm going to shoot for the moon. So I'm still living in D.C. i was like, all right. And I had to work out of Dallas. Okay. Because that's where the safety shop was. You got to give me positive space whenever I want. So I'm not going to non rev. I got to get an apartment and I got to have a car. And that's your deal. Okay. So they agreed to it. So I went out, took over the focal point. What FOCA is for, folks that don't really know. It's extremely interesting. They take all the flight data from every airplane in the fleet. That's like 6,000 flights a day. And all that data gets aggregated, okay, from all the different fleets, all the different types of airplanes. And then a company was called Austin Digital, then down in Austin, Texas. They're kind of the ones that invented this whole thing. I think they've since been bought by ge. Maybe they take all that data, huge amount of data, aggregate it, and then mask it. So then they can go with a proprietary program and look at all that data and look for certain events. And we could define those events like an early descent on an approach, an overspeed, A flap, overspeed, engines failing, just you name, you, you. Your imagination is. Is the limit. You can think of all kinds of parameters to set.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

And you would sit there and it was a.

[Major Ken Lee]

You.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Was it a group of pilots?

[Major Ken Lee]

So the software program would go through and look at all these events, and then Identify. So every day there was a data dump. Here's the interesting events. And they were data masks. So the crew wasn't identified. The crew, the date and the flight number wasn't identified. And the reason for that. So the company American couldn't retaliate. And we said, look, this is the only way we're going to get to hear about what actually happened. Even, you know, if it was their fault, if it wasn't their fault, it's got to be, you know, amnesty, period. Okay. And everybody agreed to that and they kept their word. So then we had. The union had gatekeepers, and the gatekeeper could actually see the identity of the crew. Oh, wow.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Okay.

[Major Ken Lee]

So then the gatekeeper would call the crew crew and go, hey, on such and such, they identify themselves first. They go through kind of a whole laundry list. Hey, I'm here to help you. Everything we say is confidential. The company America's never going to hear about this. And then they would talk about the event. And sometimes the guys would go, yeah, I knew I was going to get a call from you.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

I exceeded this something at this time.

[Major Ken Lee]

Right. And sometimes they had no idea and were completely surprised. And when I left the safety shop, they were just developing an animation program. Well, now that's come to fruition. They can animate events. They can bring crew in and show them everything that happened in extreme detail. It's really, really good. And then we also have what's called an ASAP program.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

We have that too.

[Major Ken Lee]

I don't know what they call it in Navy.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

It's the same thing.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah, but you self report an event and then you get amnesty for that event. Unless there was alcohol involvement. A willful disregard. The big five. So me and my guys and girl Lisa Johnson, another great person, she's now 787. Check. Airman. Fantastic. They would interview a crew and then if they thought an ASAP needed to be filed from this FOCA data event, they could tie that ASAP to that foca. So you tie those two together. So the. The amount of data we got out of that was just incredible. Yeah.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

And just increased safe operations. Right. Awareness.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah, it's fantastic couple, really. In 99% of the time, a crew would be very forthcoming. Yeah, I'd help you occasionally. You'd get a crew that did something and knew they'd done it and they lied to you.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Interesting.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. And we had one event in my time there where basically, not to get into too much detail, but let's say almost lost an airplane and basically acted like it was Turbulence that caused the event and then didn't say anything. And then a flight attendant in the back, her husband was a Czech airman. She called her husband and told her about the event. And literally I was getting a call from the FAA like an hour after they landed. That's the other thing. We had an extremely good relationship with the faa. So our FAA principal operations inspector, the head guy for the FAA at our airline, and I would have breakfast every Thursday morning, go over the week's sins and say, okay, this crew did this and here's what I want to do. Okay, sounds good. He was fantastic. We would fix 99% of the problems without anybody getting any bad paperwork. It was fantastic. So he called me up and he goes, hey, you might want to go take a look at this. This happened. And we took a look and we're like, yeah, this is really bad. So we call the crew. And I had some folks did interviews. They specialized the gatekeepers and they could tell right away the story. The stories were all exactly the same,

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

a little rehearsed.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. And I said, look, we're here to help you, help me to help you kind of a thing. And didn't happen. But that was really, really rare. Most time the crews were there to, you know, they were. Thank you for doing that. We had a crew descend on an approach early and just. And break out of the weather and see nothing but water. Oh, missed approach. They go around and come back and they fly another one and land. Well, turns out they've been flying an all nighter and fatigue was an issue and they had no idea how close they were. Wow.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

No kidding.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yep. Until we brought them in and showed them all that. It's an amazing program.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

You said it's just the safety record of the airlines is knock on wood. Right. Is amazing. Unless something like DCA happens and there is a pilot error that's involved in that that caused that collision. But it's instruments like that and the Navy does asap, we call it M Folkwa for a little bit, I'm not really sure, but we do exceedances like that too. So when I was the commodore would get monthly reports of that for all the H60s or the 53s, you know, that are in the wing. And you could see when it happened what squadron it was and what caused it.

[Major Ken Lee]

It's a great tool and there's usually a rule and really good things came out of it. Like for instance, we had a lot of flap over speeds and flaps. One was the first flap setting in the 737. And all it really did was sort of put the slats out and maybe extend them a little bit. But there's speed limits associated with that. So guys kept exceeding the flap limits. So the airline came up with, now we're going to call the speed out. So physically, pilot not flying has to say, so I'm flying. I call for flaps when he goes, okay, below, I think it was 210, maybe. No, it's faster than that. 250, 240, whatever. Those numbers are laughing. So it's been a few years below 240. Flaps coming to 1. So added a step. You got to look at the airspeed. Yeah, we're not going to overspeed the flaps and brought them out and flap over speeds just plummeted after that. Look at that.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

It's a mitigation.

[Major Ken Lee]

It's great. Right?

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

And then as long as everyone complies with it because they go through training again to get it, then you know they're not going to have it.

[Major Ken Lee]

So it's really. I feel really good kind of having help bring that back to life. And then the other cool part of the story is three folks that. Several folks that were in that shot now have gone on in their leadership at the airline vacation with them now. So you kind of get to hear what's going on. It's just really cool.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

And you did that for about three years.

[Major Ken Lee]

Three years. And then my last year, I went back and I just flew.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Oh, nice.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. I just wanted to go fly. I didn't want any responsibility. And I retired at 60 when I got hired. You had to retire at 60, but they later changed it to 65. But financially, my wife and I had planned to. I want to retire at 60 because we want to travel. We love to travel, and I want to do it while I'm still able. I don't have health issues. I'm not dead. Which when you get older, that's an issue.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yes. That could tamper the vacations.

[Major Ken Lee]

Right. So I retired at 60, and I could have stayed a few more years, but just started traveling and love it. And then literally the year I retired, about two months later, a guy rode up on a bike that lives in my neighborhood. Lou Plotz, volunteer at the museum. Old F8 pilot, along with Dave Lorenzo. He ejected out of an F8 in the Gulf of Tonkin at night and lived through it. He rides his bike up to my house and goes, hey, I hear you're an Air Force guy. I hear you're retired. We need you over at the Navy Museum. To be a volunteer. I'm like, I'm an Air Force guy. He goes, don't worry, we'll train you.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

That's how you got here.

[Major Ken Lee]

And that's how I got here. So came over initially, worked in visitor support, and then Lou Humphrey, the head docent, said, hey, I've heard your background. I'd kind of like you to become a trolley driver. Back then, we gave rides out on the flight line in a trolley.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Oh, yeah, that's right. It was way before my time.

[Major Ken Lee]

And one of the reasons you asked me, you had to have a DOT physical to drive the trolley at that time. And I was one of the younger guys that could actually pass the physical because you had to go down to the flight surge. So true story. I got down the flight surgeon. I could literally feel my blood pressure popping up as I walked in the door there.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Like, you're out.

[Major Ken Lee]

Sorry. Yeah. But did that a few years. And then Lou said, hey, all right, now it's time for you to transition over to giving tours inside. And did that. And then two years ago, I took over.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

So now you're running the Blue Angels, right?

[Major Ken Lee]

The Blue angel practice team for the museum. Doug Harrington and his wife Patty were doing that, and Patty had some health issues, and Doug said, look, I'm going to have to be with her. Can you do this? So Pete Moore and I took it over. Pete's an i6 pilot. Oh, yeah. I've met him later. Northwest. He was the chief pilot at Northwest. Retired.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Really?

[Major Ken Lee]

Yep. So Pete and I do that together, and we love it. We do practice. We both can narrate, but we let Dave and Doug are much better at it. Our time will come. So we let them do it.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah, that's right. Just start practicing now.

[Major Ken Lee]

Yeah. So just love doing that. And we get anywhere from 1500 to 5000 people out there. You never know what you're going to get. And it's growing, as you know, with the bleachers and everything else.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Oh, yeah, it is. Aiden, though, you guys do an excellent service out there to be able to corral people and to make it so it's safe and fun, and it's a show that you're not going to see anywhere else because you are on the

[Major Ken Lee]

flight line and you never know what you're going to get.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah, that's right.

[Major Ken Lee]

We listen to the radio. Sometimes you get the same maneuver twice. You can hear the chatter going from the beginning of the season, where it's very strict radio protocol, to the end of the season where we're having complicated discussions in the middle of maneuvers. It's great and it's great to see the team get tight and just really good. But yeah, I love doing that.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

That's awesome. Yeah, that's great. Well, I think we should just end on a high note with that. Ken, it's been great hearing your stories from helicopter days through Air Force One to now the Blue Angels here. And I know you're going to keep continuing doing this, keep traveling as well, but your home now is in Gulf Shores, Alabama, which is just right down the road from the cradle of naval aviation. So thank you very much for joining us today.

[Major Ken Lee]

I appreciate the effort. Ryan, thank you very much.

[Retired Navy Captain Ryan Keyes]

Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for joining us on this flight through history and innovation here at the Ready Room. We hope today's episode inspired you with new insights and the incredible stories that make naval aviation so extraordinary. If you enjoyed the journey, be sure to subscribe, leave a comment, review and share the podcast with your network. It helps us reach more listeners like you. Don't forget to visit the National Naval Aviation museum in Pensacola, Florida, or explore our online resources at navalaviationmuseum.org to dive deeper into the stories we've shared. Follow us on social media for updates, behind the scenes content, and a sneak peek at upcoming episodes. Until next time, thanks for listening to Ready Room. See you on the next flight.