← The Naval Aviation Ready Room Podcast with Ryan Keys
The Naval Aviation Ready Room Podcast with Ryan Keys
What Navy Test Pilot School Really Teaches You — And Why It's Not What You Think
00:50:17
In this episode of The Naval Aviation Ready Room Podcast, host Ryan Keys sits down with Commander Keith "Kiki" Kulow, USN (Ret.), whose career bridges the high-stakes world of flight testing and front-line disaster response. From flying "variable stability" aircraft that can emulate any airframe to leading the "Dusty Dogs" of HSC-7 through a historic hurricane season, Commander Kulow's story is one of technical mastery and extreme adaptability. He shares deep insights into the rigorous selection process for Test Pilot School (TPS), the surprising emphasis on written communication in flight testing, and the leadership challenges of executing unscripted rescue missions in the wake of Harvey, Irma, and Maria.
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- [00:01]
A
We were called on to respond for Hurricane Harvey one morning. The recall that we were on became a 24 hour recall and the Commodore called me up and said I think you guys are actually going to launch. I was already one foot out the door at that point in time in my flight suit with a backpack that was deployed basically with not only did we actually get launched, but we got sent to Houston and my Havoc Ground X Ray 1 ready to check one two welcome to the Naval Aviation Ready Room podcast where the stories, leadership and leading edge technology of naval aviation come alive. 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 art hardware that define the world's most prolific aviation force.
- [00:54]
B
Today's episode takes us into the heart of military leadership, a operational strategy and the transition from naval aviation to successful civilian ventures. Joining us in the Ready Room is Commander Keith Kiki Kulo, United States Navy, retired after a successful career in naval aviation, including qualification as a test pilot commanding a 250 person squadron performing critical missions during hurricanes. Keith transitioned into real estate where he is now helps investors add commercial properties to their portfolios and grow wealth. Keith's journey exemplifies not only leadership, but the ability to adapt in the face of new challenges, whether leading the squadron or managing a multimillion dollar real estate investment. Kiki, welcome to the rating room.
- [01:35]
A
Thanks Meet. It's really great to be here.
- [01:37]
B
Yeah man. So, quick background. I actually looked at my logbook this weekend and unfortunately when you are the instructor pilot and you have a student with you, not the student's name doesn't always get transcribed from from the flight document necessarily into your logbook. But I did research and tried to find your name but I could not find it in my logbook when I was an instructor pilot at HS10 and you are a Cat 1 fleet replacement pilot. So I challenge you to take a look after this and see if you can find if you ever did fly with me or not.
- [02:10]
A
My logbooks are on a shelf. I just looked off camera. I had but half of mine to go grab it cause I definitely know, I know Beef is there because I've shown him that entry before. I strongly suspect that you are as well but some other time as a student the instructor is in there so I can, you know, remember who to like in my list of people to get back at. I've got that list. It's all the, all the instructor pilots.
- [02:37]
B
The list.
- [02:38]
A
That's right. Yeah, that's it? Not that I carry a grudge or anything like that.
- [02:42]
B
No, not at all. I'm sure we all provided professional training while you were going through the frs for the first time as a young lieutenant gg.
- [02:49]
A
It was a growth experience.
- [02:51]
B
Yes. So that's when Kiki and I first met, when he was a student. He stayed on the west coast during his first tour and then went out to get qualified and went to Test Pilot School, which is kind of what I do want to anchor on a little bit today, because I do want to expose people to what Test Pilot School is. I actually have a fair amount of students, sorry to say, ensigns who come through knife right now, which is a Naval introductory flight experience that used to be called API when we went through. Who actually do want to know about Test Pilot School. And I've actually connected Kiki with one of the students. I think he had a chat with them probably six or seven months ago, something like that. Maybe it's longer than that. And to be honest with you, I think one of the things. Is it required? You have to have an engineering degree in order to go or a math degree.
- [03:38]
A
I think it's highly encouraged. I'm not an expert on the board, but from what my memory is, is that while it's not, strictly speaking, required, you're not going to be competitive if you don't have a technical undergraduate degree.
- [03:53]
B
Hence why I didn't apply. I was an English major. But we'll talk about tps. And then he actually came back to the fleet after that, after his time at Pax river, where we met up again when he was our helo rep for CAG 7 when I was in HS5. And then he went on after that to his department head tour. And where was your department head tour?
- [04:13]
A
HS5.
- [04:14]
B
It was a 5. Yeah, that's right. Yes.
- [04:16]
A
I should have known that was a double dipper.
- [04:18]
B
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. There are a few of those. DK Derek Kingsley shout out to him. He is a double dipper as well. And then where'd you go after your department head tour?
- [04:28]
A
I went to the War College, which was fantastic. And then I went overseas to I call the equivalent of a combatant command for NATO. And NATO has a similar military structure that we do. Tons of people don't realize, but I was in the Netherlands at one of their combatant commands called JFC Bronson.
- [04:47]
B
Yeah. So I would love to get to that as well. Cause I think that's something that a lot of people just don't see. Kind of the path of naval aviation sometimes. And then after that you screen for Command successful level 5 command to the dusty dogs, HSC 7. And then after that you went to the wing and joined me there for a little bit before you retired. So it was an in and out of of times together, which has been fantastic.
- [05:09]
A
Agreed.
- [05:10]
B
Yeah. So what I tell people about test pilot school is that one, you have to be very, very, very competitive coming out of your JO tour, right. Your first sea duty. If you're not the number one, I guess a number two could probably make it as well. But I try to tell them, obviously try to be the top performer and then get recommendations for test pilot school from your CO you have to apply to a board and then if you don't make it the first try, try again. Right. Apply again, second, third time. So can you just kind of tell us your experience, why you essentially decided to go testplate school? Is that something you had thought about before? I do know it's sometimes a path to the space program. Have you had you thought about that at all and just kind of lead us down that path, if you don't mind.
- [05:53]
A
Yeah, sure. Happy to. I did want to just give a quick caveat, which is I was a graduate of class 129. Two classes per year that this school has, so that's 40 classes since I attended. All right. Because I would be there 20 years ago today and so happy to describe how things were when I was there, when I was leading up to going there. But I want to make sure I have the disclaimer that things have probably changed in the 20 odd years since I was there. And so I'll give you my best shot at that. And I think big picture, long term trends are going to remain the same, but maybe some small differences since I was there, it's been a minute, but in terms of being competitive, yes, that was certainly required different communities, to my memory, different naval aviation communities had a slightly different approach to the test pilot school. What they wanted, the kind of people they wanted to send. But in no cases were there low performers. And even when I was a CO in HSC 7, I was helping J O S from my squadron as well as others in my air wing to prepare their packages. And they still had to be in contention for the number one in their squadron fully qualified with which is a really important thing, is that the test pilot school wants mission relevance from their pilots and air crew. And so you need to have the qualifications that you can then use in the test center. So that's Important.
- [07:12]
B
Yeah. No, I think that's a great point. If I can interrupt real quick. I think that's awesome. I don't tell people that, I'll be honest with you, but I will. Now, I think everyone kind of assumes that, but you're right, not everyone does attain those qualification levels per se, especially if there's multiple ones.
- [07:30]
A
Missionaries. That's right.
- [07:31]
B
Yeah, exactly. So that's a great point. Thanks for pointing that out.
- [07:34]
A
Yeah, no problem. Absolutely. And we talked about the technical background to make you competitive and meeting with their test pilots and demonstrating that you have an understanding of what you're getting involved in. And getting their endorsements, in addition to endorsements from your leadership is important.
- [07:48]
B
How many L O R s did you get?
- [07:50]
A
Off the top of my head, I think I probably got. I think I sent two. I got three. I was lucky enough that our Commodore was also a Test pilot school graduate. And that would be the great and memorable Captain Cordellini. And so. Oh, sweet Lou, that's it. And so that was great because he knew me and he knew what the community needed. And so there's a real weight to those lors because it's a small community. In naval aviation, you and I were in a. What was ultimately a pretty small community, as I said, growing up. And there's other very, very large communities, but the test pilot community is a pretty small one. To your point, talking about astronauts, you asked. That was one of the things you asked about. So I know a bunch which is kind of cool. There is one, to my knowledge, two civilian astronauts in my test pilot school class. And then. Which is to say, not employed by the United States of America, but by private enterprise. And if I called astronauts, I'm calling them astronauts. I think that qualifies.
- [08:49]
B
We'll stick with that.
- [08:50]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [08:50]
B
As long as we don't say cosmonaut.
- [08:52]
A
That too.
- [08:53]
B
Yeah.
- [08:53]
A
I'm giving them all the props because they deserve them. I'll call them whatever they want to be called. And then two astronauts as part of NASA, as part of our program. One behind me by one or two classes and one. One class ahead of me. So. Absolutely. It's a fountainhead for the astronaut program, both public and private. And yeah, it's kind of neat to have astronauts, like, in my contacts list on my cell phone. Not that I call them, but I could if I want to.
- [09:21]
B
That's right. That could be a party line for you. I got some astronauts in my iPhone right now.
- [09:26]
A
Yeah, that's right. This is how I'm going to make Money in retirement, connect people to astronauts, I will quickly get blocked. But as for me personally, it is something that was interesting to me, but it didn't have the fire to look into that career path. So who knows how competitive I would have been one way or the other. I don't know, because I never pursued it. I wanted to go back to the fleet. That was very much something that was exciting to me. Most of the astronauts don't go back to the fleet, but there are some that do. If you remember, in our very own CAG7, Reed Wiseman, Tonto would have been with one of the VFA squadrons when you were there as a department head. And he's getting ready to go, I think, to the moon, I believe. Artemis 2, I think Tonto is mission commander. This is. We can check that in post processing. Whoever it is, congratulations. It's amazing, but I believe. So he went back to the fleet and still ended up at NASA, although most stay in the test center.
- [10:24]
B
Right. Well, you mentioned going back to the fleet. I'll have a note. So we can just circle back to this about command. Going back to the fleet as a test pilot school graduate. And then there's NASA, aedo, whatever it is. But let me ask you a quick question. So I know that there's other test pilot schools. So Air Force has their own that's out of Edwards, and then the UK has one Empire Test Pilot School. So did you have the opportunity for those or did you not just happen to be timing? Is that what it's all based upon?
- [10:54]
A
It is based heavily upon timing. And at the time that I was going, there's also, by the way, National Test Pilot School, can't forget. Just gonna give a proper shout out to all of them that I'm aware of. And last and certainly not least, Epinaire, which is the French Test Pilot School in Salon de Provence in southern France.
- [11:11]
B
No kidding.
- [11:12]
A
Yeah. Gotta love the French.
- [11:13]
B
Where's National?
- [11:14]
A
National is at Edwards, I believe, or somewhere in the Mojave, somewhere in the southwest, in an appropriately desolate place. Do you know Brian Sandberg?
- [11:25]
B
Why do I know that name?
- [11:26]
A
I've mentioned him to you. He's a fantastic gentleman. He's an instructor at National. You did so at the time that I was going, I think they typically sent helicopter pilots to Empire when they're going through. And they had a student that was just finishing up during when I put my application in. So I don't actually think they were selecting anyone to the international schools when I was going through. So I probably Checked the block that I would be willing to go overseas to go to school, but I don't know that there was anybody there. Because once you finish test pilot school, by the way, you become a test pilot, which may seem obvious, most people focus on the school, but then there's a tour as a test pilot. And at HX21, which is where most of the helicopter pilots go, at least did there in that pool of test pilots, there was one guy's schooling at Empire, was there, you know, obviously in our test center testing for us.
- [12:20]
B
So can you just kind of talk about TPS in above itself? How long was it? What kind of test flights did you do? I know that test pilots, normally I will say this when you read their, read their bio at the bottom, they will say they have over 2,500 hours in 40 different kinds of aircraft. Hey, that's a cool thing. I'll be honest with you.
- [12:43]
A
It's a little flexed a little bit.
- [12:44]
B
But that's okay. I got a lot of hours in one, so I can't really trump that. So if you could just discuss that.
- [12:50]
A
Yeah, of course. So let me start. The first question that you asked was about the curriculum. So with that very large caveat that I gave earlier, there are three different courses of study at the school. There's the fixed wing program, there's the rotary wing program, and then there's a systems program in each class. And I'm talking about, I should say test pilot school in addition to having the long form class that makes test pilots and flight test engineers. And there's also short classes that they, you know, support the fleet and I think the civilian world as well with some of these shorter term classes that are deeply focused. But in the long form, which is what pilots from the fleet, from the fleet will go through, that class is one year long, divided into two semesters. As I said earlier, they have two classes a year. One starts in the, you know, right after the holiday break and one starts in the summertime. So two classes at the school at any given time. You focus. There's academics and then there's flying. Memory serves, it's academics in the morning, flying in the afternoon. And then you swap is what I recall. Again, it's been a hot minute. So that each class is an opportunity to both be in school, in class and then also flying. The curriculum, broad strokes here and 20 years old, is focused on teaching the performance. So basically really the math is, you know, how the engines work, how do you optimize engines, the actual aerodynamics, the Math behind the aerodynamics, and it's all quantifiable. It's teaching, you know, those fundamentals of those disciplines that you would get at sort of a aeronautical engineering school, probably somewhere in between undergraduate and graduate level, I think I would guess the other part of it they teach is the sort of handling qualities and what that means is how does the airplane fly, how does the system work? How well are you able to interact with it? Can you accomplish the mission? And if so, why? Or why not? It's squishier, but there is absolutely science to it. And they teach you how to approach. It's a little bit of a qualitative art, but they teach you quantitative methods to basically help the non flyer, the engineer, the program manager, to understand the relevance of something that sounds like, well, you just don't like it. Well, no, you have to defend your opinion. Ultimately you're being trained to hone your opinion into something professional. So that's the second sort of part of the curriculum, but throughout all of it. And really what in a sense being a test pilot is about is if they teach you how to effectively communicate in a way that is probably underappreciated. I certainly didn't appreciate it when I was there. They are relentless in their how they teach you to really focus on communication and whittle down every excess word, every euphemism, every, and make you a better writer and communicator. Because ultimately at the end of the day, and this is me speaking, not the school, but if you don't learn the power equations for an NJET engine flight perfectly, that's okay because you have a team of people down on the ground that know that stuff way better than you ever could hope to. They don't want you to. And frankly, I think the test pilots that are the most successful are the ones that understand that they're not the engineers, they're not the designers. You know, they don't know what the right answer is, but the ones that can actually go out, operate the air vehicle, operate the system, and then come back and say effectively, like, I don't know why this happened, but this happened and this is why it matters. And say it in a way that it's actionable. And so that communication piece, both verbal communication, but especially written communication, is the school. Hammers, hammers and hammers. And when you don't want to have it hammer anymore, they hammer on you even more. And so I became a much better writer, which is something you don't expect. Oh, the test pilot school taught Me how to write. It doesn't seem like, you know, this is not a liberal arts school, but, but it's a communication school. And I'm actually really grateful for it because that skill carried through the rest of my career and on into a second act. So that was the shoot, man, I'll tell you.
- [17:08]
B
That's great insight, man. That is awesome. I never thought about that. I know you guys would come back and write reports, right? On your findings or whatever you were testing. You had to come back and like I said, had to tell the engineers why this didn't work. But to be able to kind of wrap that all into one big skill, verbal written communication, and then take that forward after that, I mean, dude, that's a great asset. So you're not just sitting there crunching numbers with a slide rule. I mean, you're sitting down and you would have to go fly. So you know what we used to say, right? So when you go fcf, an aircraft, at least a helicopter community, because we would definitely do it a little differently than the other communities we would usually spend. I always kind of equate it to three hours of ground turns, equals about one hour of flight time. Doing a functional check flight. Right? A post maintenance flight. What would be your ratio when it comes to flying a test flight and then the ride up afterwards?
- [18:02]
A
Yeah, good question. And actually at first glance, that three to one is not too far off. I think that there's depending on the complexity of what you're. The test that you're doing, especially one that is a highly qualitative task, it's probably even more than that. I would say five or six to one when you're talking about data reduction. And at the end of the day, I spent as much time, you know, frankly, it's not the graphing, the charts and the plot. Like there's MATLAB algorithms and computer programs that can reduce the data for you. There's certainly some data reduction and data analysis. But I spent more time sitting there trying to say, how do I say this? You know, how do I get this point across? How do I relate this to what I'm being, You know, the mission relation, like why? You know, like I remember one of the instructors there always used to ask, so what? And it was buried in your head. There's a couple of things that got burned into my head at that time. One of them is why and so what? Those two questions, you have to answer them. And then they used to talk about how you can't say lack of, if the system or Air vehicle is missing something that you want. You don't get to say, well, it's because it doesn't have this thing that I want. Like, there's no lack of. You can't say lack of. But anyway, figuring making it an absolutely, you know, airtight case for so what is really your job as a test pilot.
- [19:26]
B
Man, that is cool. I love it.
- [19:28]
A
You asked about the airplanes. How many different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know my number. It's in the 20s. If you had to force me to choose a number, I'd say 26, but I don't know that that's the right number. It's in the 20 somewhere. Somewhat arbitrarily, he says 26. I'll go back and look at my logbook and see what it says. The flexibility, you know, and understanding that, you know, when you come in, you know, how to fly. The flight school is a great education in aviation, but it teaches you how to adapt yourself to suit the airframe, right? And you've flown your. Those airplanes in flight school, Those aircraft at flight school, you've operated their systems, and then you go to the fleet, and you're not taught to question, why does that thing do that? Why does it work that way? And you just go to like, oh, I want to make it do the thing I want to make it do. I learn all these, like, methods for doing that. Right. And boost off, sass off. Right. You can. I'm sure you can think of all the different ways the school teaches you instead of how to optimize for one airframe, how to, like, take a step back and understand what the inherent characteristics of the aircraft or the system are, and then evaluate whether or not they're good or not good. And that flexibility, that's why they do it. They don't make you fly a whole bunch of different things in order to teach you so that you can be like, oh, I've flown this and that. I know something about this. I know something about that. They can care less about that. They want you to understand, to be able to take a step back from the specific airplane's characteristics and understand that and how aircraft should operate for this mission generally and be able to adapt to it and say, oh, this is a good thing, or that's a bad thing about those different aircraft. And in fact, actually, at least when I was there, I hope they still do this. You actually have airplanes, aircraft, both helicopters and airplanes, they can tune the handling and performance characteristics of the aircraft in flight, and it's called variable stability. Aircraft and as I said, they've got helicopters as well as airplanes. And it's like a game of stunt the chop. They're like, okay, we're going to go and emulate a certain kind of an aircraft student. Now detect what is this airplane, but identify the characteristics. What is the likely mission set for this? And sometimes it's like they want you to try and guess what the actual aircraft is. So in addition to flying different aircraft and getting a sense of it, you go out and fly the same aircraft and it emulates different things while you're flying it, which is. I can see your processing that.
- [21:49]
B
Dude, I've never heard of that. Honestly, I've never heard of a TPS grad talk about that before. I didn't know you guys even did that. So you could like be flying a 60 and they could change it to where you feel the different vibrations or they induce something differently and you're like. And it starts and it's rattling a little different like that.
- [22:08]
A
It's that it's also the controls. So actually the helicopter is a variable. It's an H60, it's a Bravo, I think, very stable stability Seahawk. And it can go out and it can emulate, you know. Yes. Be twitchy and highly reactive. Like they can change the way the flight controls respond to input, change the gains that you have on the system so that it becomes twitchy or very sluggish and slow. Like it makes it feel like an Apache or a Cobra or you know, an observation helicopter, a little bird or something like that. And also even turn those up too much and so you get some very unsafe or unpleasant characteristics to. Flying was part of the curriculum, I assume. If I remember correctly, the school owns the Bravo, the variable stability Bravo. It was a Learjet and I think they had two for certainly one of them was a Learjet that the school didn't know and it brought in at least at that time.
- [23:05]
B
Wow. Honestly, I think that's amazing. You know that that can happen, right? Because that's why you do a post maintenance check flight. Because you adjust the flight controls, the rigging, whatever it is and bring it in. But to do it the other way and to put it out on purpose to make you feel something different. Wow. I did not know that even happened. Maybe I should have assumed that. But man, great info is neat.
- [23:30]
A
They certainly invested a lot in the students.
- [23:32]
B
Yeah. So then. So you successfully graduated after a year, Right. Woohoo. Got a diploma and all that. And then the normal progression is to go to a test Squadron there at Pax River. I was fortunate enough after I graduated. I forgot to mention too that you are a. A fellow Annapolis grad as well. I'm trying to remember now you're 2000.
- [24:01]
A
Oh, that hurts.
- [24:03]
B
99.
- [24:04]
A
Yeah, 99, you got it.
- [24:06]
B
All right. So after I graduated I went down to Pax river and I was stashed at Strike Aircraft test squadron in 1995 and in 96 which is now VX23 I believe. Right?
- [24:18]
A
23, yeah.
- [24:19]
B
And they do essentially care suitability for the strike fighter platforms. And when I was there was still f 14Ds, you know they're still flying those around. So that's normally the strike fighter to say NFO pilot path.
- [24:33]
A
There's a certain number of. I think I'm not sure if they're sending helicopter pilots out there yet or now. But they do send some fixed wing test pilots and NFOs to out to the desert, out to China Lake after graduation. So not everybody does a tour at Pax river and that's what I recall. Yeah. The X9 that out to China Lake as well. So China Lake or Pax river. One of the two.
- [24:55]
B
Correct. And then the maritime community goes to what was called Force Warfare Squadron I believe. I think they are now a VX number 10, something like that.
- [25:06]
A
Yeah, honestly, I don't recall. Hx was 21. I don't think they were 22. I don't think there was force was 22. That doesn't sound right. And then obviously 23 was strike. I had arcol. I'm sure google could answer this for us. I should know this.
- [25:21]
B
I'm sure it can. Well, I'm sure someone will leave a comment.
- [25:23]
A
Oh yeah, always sidelining us just because we fly big wing and we're all a part of the naval aviation family. I'm lover of all.
- [25:31]
B
So then you went to HX21. So kind of talk us through that. And what program did you mainly work on there? Because that's what you do, right, As a test bot. You go there, you essentially accept the program that you work on if not your whole time or maybe a little bit less depending on the length of the program. And did you work on the same one for a year? Did you do two years there before you came back to CAG 7?
- [25:52]
A
It's a supposed to be a full three year tour. I did the vast majority of that. So I was a little bit, you know, I had a slightly shorter test center tour than I otherwise than most do. Most they expect because they're spending so much money investing, as I just talked to get you through this expensive school they want you for there for a full tour. And in fact what is one of the qualifications or caveats in the application process is that if you don't have time for a full three year tour, you're not supposed to even apply. In my case, I had a extra year after graduation from college and I went to grad school for one year so I had to play some catch up. But I actually caught up quite a bit in my first fleet tour. any rate, the community pulled me from HX21 a little bit early, but it was a darn near a full three years and they want you for three years and even longer if you can. And actually that you asked me an earlier question about why test pilot school for me. And I will say it wasn't super relevant to our audience, your audience, but it's come back around because you just asked me what I did. And at that time our community was acquiring a new helicopter. In fact, the Navy was acquiring two new helicopters, two new airframes for three communities. They were even dabbling with trying to eliminate a fourth helicopter which would have been the MH53. They were ultimately unsuccessful, but they were getting rid of the 46, the Bravo, SH60 Bravo and SH60 Foxtron Hotel. So I worked primarily on the H60 program. There was a little bit of legacy. They were still doing a little bit with the old airframes when I got to HX21. But primarily I wanted to. And my role while I was there was to work both on the Romeo and on the Sierra, which were just hitting the fleet at that time, the Block one, I believe they called the Sierra that was sent to the HC ultimately HSC communities that were doing replacing the 46, which is by far the oldest aircraft that we had. But we worked on both the Romeo and Sierra test program. I did one of the neat things, at least at that time because you were working, you just graduated with pilots from all the different rotary wing communities and you were all in the same squadron. It was not uncommon to sit and fly for other test programs if they had a lot of testing going on. It didn't most of this. You know, each community typically only has a couple test pilots, test aviators, test NFOs and so there's a lot of cross pollination. So I wasn't doing, you know, actually taking Data for the 53 program, but I was in the aircraft assisting the test pilot like so we'd go out on missions with the Cobra and the Hueys, you know, so we got to do testing for the other communities, but never your own project. Like for example, as age 60, guy would never be assigned a test project for one of these other airframes. My test projects were mostly had to do with our Armed Helicopter MH60 Sierra Block 3. I did a fair amount of AMCM testing, but there was never any of my aircraft that's airborne mine countermeasures, doing mine hunting and minesweeping. I flew a bunch of the Romeo stuff for their mission systems, their sonar, the ALF system and the radar system. But for me personally, I was, I, you know, one of the, you talked about the shift suitability, that's what the fixed wing calls it. But I did the, it's called dynamic interface for helicopters, but basically landing helicopters on ships. That's some of the most fun, most rewarding flying that I did once I got to the test center was flying, doing the ship suitability which like I said helicopters called dynamic interface. That was a DI project lead for most of the DI projects. You know, once the guy who was senior to me went back to the fleet, so I was his junior pilot and I took over those.
- [29:49]
B
Yeah. So essentially you are creating the wind envelopes for the helicopters when they land on every class of ship that is an air capable ship, whether that's an aircraft carrier, an lha, lhd, lpd, supply ships or you know, replenishment ships.
- [30:06]
A
Exactly. And pitch and roll. But yes, oh yes, pitch and roll.
- [30:10]
B
Yes, very, very important. Yes, quite true. So you have to do all that on a day, night on goggles, all kinds of stuff, good weather, bad weather, you name it. You probably want the best weather, I would think. Right. So that way it's not necessarily giving you errors, if I want to put it that way necessarily. But yeah, that's pretty interesting.
- [30:30]
A
You certainly don't want bad weather. But if you have absolutely no sporty days, no high wind days, you know, the ship has a, you know, can only generate so much of an envelope. If you see, flip through the book and you see a ship class that has a small envelope, why can't I land going this speed with this wind vector wind quadrant? It's probably because when they went out and did the test, they didn't have enough wind, they couldn't get those test points. So you actually do want a little bit of bad weather, but you want to hit the point. Ideally you go out and you find the edge of performance either of the person, of the pilot or of the aircraft. As it interfaces with the ship. And sometimes you don't have the weather to get that because ultimately what you're going out and doing, you fly those test points at each one of these areas and you rate it using rumor. I talked about that. Qualitative to quantitative science, trying to create something that's quantitative out of qualitative data. You have a rating scale that they call for that stuff. They call it DIPE scale. The name doesn't really matter. But you go out and you're like, oof, that was hard. I give that a rating of this. And by the way, the communication, they're recording what you're saying and you give your feedback right there on the spot. So you don't forget it. And then you go. And then the ship turns a little bit or speeds up a little bit, you know, depending on. And you're going to try to find the edge of that envelope. And ultimately the engineers, the flight test engineers plot all the things we've tried. And once you hit the, you know, maybe this is daytime only. Like maybe I want to see this at night to make sure I can do it at night, maybe you don't. And ultimately you draw the envelope. You've never been anywhere in that wind envelope that a test pilot hasn't already been.
- [32:12]
B
Ooh, that's a great point. So just think about this. So the Romeo Sierra wind envelopes were created during your time there, which was what, 05 to 07 when you were there, roughly.
- [32:24]
A
That's right, yeah. 08. They certainly started before. They started before that, you know, before I was there, because it's a matter of ship class availability and a bunch of other things about testing. But yes, they were being developed, currently still being developed. I did a couple of supply ships there. I did TILO first to make sure that when you carry on all the stuff, you could still land on the ship. And I did the AMCM system, which was called the block 2, which never really made it to the fleet. This gigantic reeling machine arm that stuck out the side of the helicopter.
- [32:58]
B
Oh, it's there now, Is it back? Okay, she's back, baby.
- [33:01]
A
We had dinner earlier this week with a couple of guys from the community and some who are still involved. And I understand that they're standing up squadrons that they've recently shut down. And you know, they're. What's old is new again.
- [33:12]
B
Yeah, HSC 22.
- [33:13]
A
Yeah, that's what I heard.
- [33:14]
B
Yeah. Yeah. She was decom shortly after I left the wing and thankfully cooler heads prevailed and knew we had capability Gaps and they brought the Sea Knights back. So I'm very, very happy to hear that. But my point is that. So you had, like, the play. You were the guy. You and a few others. I mean, you have your fingerprints on the Romeo and Sierra, like I said. Capability, set envelopes.
- [33:44]
A
I actually did the carrier, believe it or not. You know, I was gonna say I did some supply shifts, but the biggest class that I did was the Nimitz class. I did the. For the updated deck spots and spot seven, Spot eight and nine, the precision deck spots. That was one of my programs. I was the test pilot of record on.
- [34:02]
B
That is so cool, because we had. You had those on Ike.
- [34:04]
A
That's right.
- [34:05]
B
Yeah, we had those on Ike when you. When we were there.
- [34:07]
A
Ike was the test article. We put them on Ike and then they decided to leave them on Ike, man.
- [34:13]
B
So cool. I can't believe you did that as a lieutenant. No. Well, that's even better. That's even better, man.
- [34:21]
A
That's one of the things that. I mean, you get the keys to Castle as a test pilot. That's one of the things you get through that school. You learn the things that you learn. You demonstrate the knowledge. Obviously, within the test center, they put the most trust in the ones that are the most trustworthy. But you have a tremendous amount of sway or influence at a pretty early rank in that community. It's cool.
- [34:40]
B
Yeah, you do, man. That's great. I think the audience, especially those young naval aviators and NFOs who maybe are thinking about it, hopefully we'll hear that and we'll push more people towards, you know, the application process because we do need great people go into that, which is awesome. So one caveat. I was at Gulf Coast Fleet Fly in last week. I noticed that HSC Helicopter C Combat Community, when they did their brief, the motto that they used, you'll be familiar with this. Rescue, protect, deliver.
- [35:11]
A
That's cool. Yeah.
- [35:12]
B
I actually text BE right then and told him that, you know, that was the motto that him and Wade McConvi, who was another test pilot graduate, who was the skipper of HS5 when we were there, and Mark Levitt was the XO. They're the ones who created that. That was in their mission statement when OP McCombe took over. And it still lives today because I think it's appropriate. Right. And it'll live forever. It's exactly what HSC does. So now let's roll into. For the last few minutes here, you had opportunity. Now you said you wanted to go back to the fleet and there are test pilots who don't do that. Right. There's test pilots who may be into the space program, who may go after the. Or enter what's called the AEDO Community Aviation Engineering Duty Officer Community. Can you tell me why you didn't necessarily want to do that, why you wanted to go to command? I think it's obvious, but I kind of know why, but kind of tell me why you want to do that. And then how that whole TPS process said affected your time in command of the Dusty Dogs and what you guys did there too.
- [36:08]
A
Sure. Why did I want to go back to the fleet? I loved it, first of all. And that was one of the main drivers as I saw myself as a fleet pilot, as I wanted to be associated with the mission. I wanted to. I still felt like I had more to give in the squadron. And this is 2008 timeframe. So Iraq war is still going. War in Afghanistan was still going. We'd had as a community at that time, I think our star was rising. And there was people doing. My friends, you know, that I'd left on deployment, one of my J.O. squadron, they went and they were based in Camp Arafchan. They were boots on the ground in Kuwait, flying missions in Iraq. And I still felt very passionate about what the Navy was doing and being part of the battle fleet. So I wanted to deploy. I missed. And also we talk about this. I talk about this. One of the things I've noticed, it seems like there are certain squadrons whose wardrooms, the JA wardrooms end up filling out like a larger than would be like sort of average chunk of their community's leadership. You know, there's like certain squadrons, certain times and places where they're on a terror for whatever reason. And I used to say, well, this is, you know, we knew what right looked like and I was a Jon squadron that had that and that squadron produced off the top of my head, three or four cos out of a wardrobe of like 10 or 11 Jos in a community where there's like 10cos right at a given time. So I got to see what Wright looked like, so to speak. We saw it again in what was ultimately your department head squadron. My department head squadron was a time and a place that it was a good place to be a naval aviator. And so I'd left that and I wanted to go back to it and I wanted to contribute and our community promoted. There was a decent number of test pilots who were squadron and cos and kind of wanted to be one. So by that point in time I wanted to get back to the fleet. I was excited for the flying and the camaraderie. And so that for me, I really enjoyed my time in the test center. I always thought about, you know, maybe there would be a second night for me or go back there at some point in time. But I never seriously considered going Aedo for that reason. But there's plenty of good reasons to do that. And the test center is also, you know, it's different because it's shore duty. As you, you know, when you are a shore based squadron for your shore duty, it's not exactly the same as a seagoing fleet squadron, but it was still fun. Quality of life is good. And I can say it at Pax river if you like the cosmopolitan lifestyle. You may not love it, it's more rural, but I think I've heard it's got a lot nicer than when I was there.
- [38:45]
B
Lexington park has grown up.
- [38:47]
A
Yeah. Yes, so I've heard. And D.C. has grown down. I think it's also safe to say. Yeah, I can't speak about China Lake one way or the other, but quality of life I think is pretty good there. And it's also a mission. To your point earlier, we need good people to do it. At the end of the day, mastery of the air is a combination of equipment and of tactics and you need the best of both. And so we need good people who work in those programs. And hey, listen, it's not an easy job to develop the next great fighter or helicopter or patrol control or surveillance aircraft. Like it's not a series of quick wins, right? It's a long game and there's setbacks and compromises that have to be made. And it's a beat down. So it's not the sexiest sometimes. But we need people to go and do it because we need the equipment. We need the absolute best equipment. And I think we still have it. And I think it's a competitive advantage that we have. I think that we would love to let people sleep on us and talk about how amazing everybody else's, all these other nations stuff is. But I think when the chips are down, we're going to find out once again that we have by far and away the best equipment in the world. And I think that's because we have the best acquisition process in the world, no matter how frustrating it is to the people who are involved in, or at least was at that point in time. So there's a plug for Aedo.
- [40:09]
B
Great commentary. I love it. So continue about your time at the Dusty Dogs and what you got to do while you were there when you were the XO and Skipper.
- [40:16]
A
Yeah. Wow. Okay, xo. I walked right into a deployment. I came back from overseas, went through the retraining as a cat other at the frs and missed pretty much all of workups. I think I got to go on comp 2x. Lucky me. And then I went and deployed 2016, and it was a fantastic deployment, but sort of in my history arc, my story arc, I would say. I don't say unremarkable, but it was a deployment. All of the good and bad that go along with that. Got to sort of grow the squadron. The squadron was on the rise, and so it was fun to be a part of that. Talking about thinking up mission statements and creating an environment that people want to be a part of and want to buy into. That was a lot of that first deployment, which is an accident deployment for me, but probably more of what's unique about command experience was one week after my change of command, after we got back from that deployment, we were the ready duty squadron for the wing for hurricane preparation and we were called on to respond for Hurricane Harvey. So one morning, the recall that we were on became a 24 hour recall. And the Commodore called me up and said, I think you guys are actually going to launch. So I was already sort of one foot out the door at that point in time in my flight suit with a backpack that I was packed so that I could like, you know, spend the day at the squadron. And that was it. That was. I deployed basically with that. Now, of course, our sea bags eventually caught up to us, but we were, you know, not only did we actually get launched, but we got sent to Houston to respond to Hurricane Harvey. This is 2017, 2018. I think it 17 sticks in my head, but I think it was 17 Hurricane Harvey. And then we were flying home from that. We were. Spent a couple of weeks on the line there and we were relieved by the west coast and was on the way home. We were in Nashville. It was late at night that night. We weren't flying until late the following day. I was at an undisclosed location and that involved a street and some restaurants and live music in Nashville and absolutely behaving as were everybody else. I got a phone call from the Commodore and he was like, yeah, so remember that thing about coming home, why don't you? We have a situation in Florida. There is a Kearsarge is heading south from Norfolk. This is probably just a big false alarm, but we need to have a presence there. And why don't you go ahead and take a right from Nashville instead of going straight home to Norfolk, you're going to take a right and you're going to. You'll catch the Kearsarge in the vicinity of Jacksonville. And Jacksonville became somewhere else before it became Homestead Air Force Base when we basically did a running intercept on Kearsarge, caught it and we were on board for Irma and then Maria. Hurricane, really. So three hurricanes one season. There was this HSC 7 made up the core of a team that ultimately included, I didn't know the numbers right off the top of my head, but aircraft and people from four or five different helicopter squadrons. We were almost like the Marines where they have a. The hmm, squadron gets reinforced. Like at one point in time, certainly the commodore was still in charge. But out there on the KEARSARGE There was 53s, maybe 53s, there was 60s from several different squadrons. And at one point in time it was spread across multiple ships as well. It was an incredible command challenge. I felt like it was the thing that I was able to sort of do for, give to the Navy, give to the country and you know, in recognition for an amazing career that I've had. This was the thing I got to give back. I was the person that was in the time and place three times in a row, you know, that summer, that summer to, you know, have the honor to lead those sailors and those aircraft and a really high calling of hurricane relief, helping American citizens and Texas Virgin island and Puerto Rico recover from that tragic hurricane season. So that was the big thing in my command tour that really dominated. So it was a lot of making it up as you go, but a lot of the adaptability, flexibility to really put into practice and some of the other things that we talked about and we sort of try to create a culture of, in the squadron and naval aviation, trust and self regulation and accountability and being asked to do and doing things that we, you know, were non standard and falling back on that. Those fundamental building blocks of both skill as a technician, but also like understanding how to interact with people, how to lead, how to interact with the locals on the ground and achieve some desired outcome and something that was not scripted, was not part of the playbook. You go to Fallon and they're like, oh, I'm going to do this. This, you know, this like, nope, that's just completely different. But the same building blocks ultimately led to our success, man.
- [45:21]
B
Well, I'll tell you, we couldn't have Asked for anyone better to be out there.
- [45:24]
A
Oh, come on.
- [45:25]
B
Yeah. I mean, dude, come on, man. I mean, our community, like you said, it's the foundation of being a helicopter aviator, I would say. Right. Adaptability and flexibility is all about that is what the helicopter brings to the fight, if you want to put it that way. But it's not always just lobbing rockets and missiles and bullets downrange. It's also about landing and kicking out a paramedic or an emt and to provide in route care from the point of injury to a higher level of care. Or it's about bringing water out to people who haven't had water for three days. And I mean, that's our nature, I think, especially in the helicopter c combat community, is that. But to have your leadership out there and be able to do that, I mean, do you just wrap that up? All the thing. Your ability to be able to complete the mission but be compassionate at the same time. I mean, that's what it's all about. That's what you're all about, which is awesome.
- [46:16]
A
Thanks, Dan.
- [46:16]
B
You're welcome.
- [46:17]
A
It's a part of my life that, like I said, I'm probably the most proud thing I ever did in uniform, but. Yeah, it's long enough ago that I couldn't remember the exact year.
- [46:27]
B
Go back and look at your logbook.
- [46:28]
A
That might. That's right. That life, it doesn't seem far, far away from me now. But I don't think about it that often. And so fond memories, certainly some challenges, but I don't get to think about that very often. And so thank you.
- [46:40]
B
Yeah, you're welcome. It was always a pleasure serving with you. Side by side, for sure. Whether that's on the boat, in the aircraft, or in the gym, one or the other. So something like that. Although we never got to go ride bikes together. We'll have to do that sometime.
- [46:53]
A
I'm telling you what. You were part of the reason I got that bug bit me. I remember you on your bike and you brought it on deployment, if I remember correctly.
- [47:01]
B
I did. And I brought the Fallon too.
- [47:03]
A
Yeah. Jealous I never got to do that. I want to do as an exo and. Yeah. Long story. That's it.
- [47:10]
B
Someday. Well, hey, with this, I'll just say too, you, you know, successfully transitioned into the civilian world and retired from the Navy, which was a loss for the Navy for sure. But I'm sure you gained a lot by doing that. And now you built your own company, Loom Equity. And like I said, you manage residential and Commercial properties, which is awesome. Across Virginia, down in North Carolina now, maybe even South Carolina.
- [47:33]
A
Yes. And Tennessee now.
- [47:34]
B
And so very successful doing that. Yeah. In Tennessee. So I'm sure those people are now have in receipt of all those skills that you just talked about, so. Which is fantastic. But again, I just want to say thank you, sir, to being here on the Ready Room and any other closing words you'd like.
- [47:52]
A
I'm excited for this project for you. You know, you talked about trying to broaden the reach of the museum way back when you were interviewing for the job, and I love the product I'm happy to see you doing, and I hope that it continues to grow. And this community that we're a part of, naval aviation, has thrown off some really outstanding citizens and humans, like family, like the people that you could have, the reach that you could have by tapping into that family is exciting to me because I think that there's some absolutely fantastic, amazing people in this large community that we're lucky to be a part of. And I couldn't think of a reason that anyone would not want to be on this podcast. So congrats for doing this. A great idea. One of these things that, you know, when someone has that idea, you're like, God, it's genius. How has no one thought of this before? Like, so I'm excited that you're doing it. I really am. So it's great. I'm happy to be part of it.
- [48:48]
B
Yeah. I remember sitting down with you and you giving me some ideas for sure. But I didn't take any of your ideas. I just took you.
- [48:54]
A
Yeah. I was just saying there's so many better people than me.
- [48:58]
B
I'll get to your list of people.
- [48:59]
A
Please do. Please do.
- [49:00]
B
But I want to start with you first.
- [49:02]
A
I'm happy to come back. We didn't talk too much about the hurricane stuff. I know you said you wanted to really dive into the test pod school experience, so. But, you know, happy to come back someday if you'll be.
- [49:12]
B
No, we could do that. We'll attack. Because you were able to do that. And then in 2019, I did Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas. So we can kind of maybe compare notes a little bit about hurricane relief
- [49:22]
A
ops and the Banda Ocha guys, too.
- [49:24]
B
Oh.
- [49:25]
A
Remember that?
- [49:25]
B
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. No kidding. Yep.
- [49:27]
A
For sure. Cool. All right, buddy.
- [49:29]
B
All right, my friend.
- [49:30]
A
Yeah. Take care. Good seeing you again. All the best. And thanks.
- [49:33]
B
All right, man. See you. 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 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.