Combat Ready: Lessons Learned in the Journey to Fighter Pilot Read online

  What if this wing was told to fly C-5s, how would you react to that?

  I understand I am signing up to serve my country and would continue to do so. However, I feel based on my skill set I would be better served in a fighter role.

  Why?

  Competitiveness, love for aerobatics and maneuverability.

  In the actual interview they asked some similar questions but they also asked more personal questions such as my interest in hunting to see if I would be a good fit within the unit.

  Throughout the weekend I learned a lot about the process and some great stories from guys who had flown in Desert Storm, Northern Watch, Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. One pilot mentioned a story where he was patrolling around Iraq and got the call to come take out a building with two guys on the roof. Through the targeting pod, he could see two men on this specific roof smoking. The bomb he was dropping didn’t detonate on impact; it waits momentarily to make sure it reaches the bottom of the building before detonating so the entire building is brought down. So the pilot released the bomb, watching through the targeting pod as a hole in the roof of the building suddenly appeared. He saw the men’s heads look over to the hole just long enough to realize what had happened before the building disappeared in a ball of flames. Another pilot told a story of marines on ATVs riding through the desert when terrorists in a suburban began chasing and shooting at them. They called in an F-16 and in one strafing pass, eliminated the threat. I hadn’t really heard stories like these but they fired me up. They added a perspective past my afterburners-and-dogfighting image of being a Fighter Pilot.

  Two weeks after leaving Alabama, I found out I did not get the spot. I heard one of their prior enlisted guys got it with little flying experience. My confidence in the process decreased tremendously. I had a few more applications coming up in the next few months but there was really nothing I could change about my application.

  A couple months later I got the call from the 175th Fighter Squadron in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, informing me I had landed an interview. I had a typo on my resume and they had had to call one of my references to get my cell phone number. Not a great start, but they let it slide. I was told to be at a specific building in two weeks at 10:40 AM for an interview. Each Guard unit does things completely differently—Alabama had a complete weekend of activities while South Dakota had one 30-minute interview and that was it. I practiced my interview questions in the hotel room that morning but was not nearly as nervous as I was in Alabama. I think it was a perception that a lot of the outcome was out of my hands. Regardless, I showed up for my interview and in 20 minutes I was back on the road heading to Missouri to run a half marathon the next morning. I felt the interview went well but was not overly confident. They asked a lot of questions about what I would do for work after I went part time.

  At one point in the drive I looked at my phone and saw I had missed a call from the Sioux Falls area code. There was a voicemail from the commander asking me to call him back. My heart jumped. I had no idea what to think. Was he calling to clarify something? It had taken Alabama two weeks to get back to me. Still naïve about the military, I didn’t even know what to call him when he picked up the phone. He talked around the issue for a few minutes, asking how the drive was going and if I was really going to run a half marathon the next morning. Finally, he said he appreciated me coming up and would like to offer me a spot to fly the F-16 for their unit. I remember starting to shake and looking at my friend with huge eyes and a grin on my face. He gave me a couple small details and said someone from recruiting would be in touch in the next couple weeks to start paperwork.

  It was the moment where you realize your dream just came true. I tried to soak it all in. I still remember my hand shaking and occasionally breaking down into laughter. I didn’t know what to do. Who should be called first? Should I text everyone? Facebook post? No, this was bigger than that. I realized if possible, this was something I wanted tell people close to me in person. Even with a half marathon to run the next morning, I only slept about an hour, watching F-16 videos on my phone all night.

  I had received the most exciting news of my life, but over the next couple weeks when my grandpa or dad would ask if I had heard anything, I would deflect the questions and act frustrated by the slow process. I wanted the moment where I revealed the news to be special. My mom was the first I told and as expected, she broke down in tears. Whether they were of happiness or fear, I shall never completely know but I have always assumed they were for both.

  My grandfather, having a huge influence on my life and career as an aviator, had been wildly hopeful for me receiving the fighter pilot position. I had to wait two weeks to drive down to his home from school. It was a beautiful day and I suggested we take the Stearman out for a spin. There were a few people wanting to go for a ride so when I asked him to go with me first he dismissed the idea saying he didn’t need to go. I made up an excuse that I wanted him to join me to practice a landing, as it had been a while since I had flown, so he reluctantly agreed.

  We fired the radial engine up and just a minute or so after takeoff, as I was deciding how to tell him, he said, “this ole bird has taught you a lot about flying. She is a great machine.”

  I responded with, “Yeah she is, just like the F-16 I got hired to fly last week.”

  He was speechless, looking at me through the mirror allowing the pilots of the plane to see each other even with tandem seating. His eyes got big and began welling up as he started fist pumping out the side of the airplane, hooting and hollering through the microphone. It was a moment of elation where the only proper way to express how you feel is to do a barrel roll and loop and we were in the perfect position to celebrate. It is a moment and flight I will never forget.

  Months later, I found out one of the key hiring factors from my interview was my commitment to flying fighters and nothing else. At one point they asked me, “we see you have essentially lived in Missouri your entire life. Do you want to live there?”

  I replied with, “Missouri doesn’t have a fighter wing so I am not interested in living there.” I wanted to be a fighter pilot. Nothing else. That is the attitude they want.

  The reactions from my MBA classmates were mixed. Most of the Americans thought it was badass. I had others ask me why in the hell I would want to do this. “You are getting an MBA, go make a lot of money.” You always hear you should love what you do and when I think about various careers, I can’t imagine myself loving too many things behind a desk. I responded to them saying that I couldn’t imagine doing anything better than flying a jet and serving my country at the same time. It would allow me to combine my passion while serving others. Furthermore, the Air Force estimates it costs around $4 million to train an F-16 pilot. So another way to look at it was that I was about to make $4,090,000 over the next two years and blow $4 million of it on flying fighter jets. I was able to finish my MBA watching my classmates stress over jobs and salary negotiations while I sat back, not caring in the slightest how much money I was going to make.

  PART 2:

  Pre-Pilot Training

  Medical Screening

  Trips to the flight doctor are the single greatest fear of the pilot. With all of their confidence, fighter pilots feel doctors are the only thing capable of shooting them out of the sky. One bad eye exam, hearing test or chest scan could render a pilot wingless, stealing not only a job, but a way of life for those spirits who feel the need to fly upside down at Mach 1.

  Eight months after getting hired, I was sent to Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for the most thorough medical examination I will ever experience. We were the last class of pilot selectees to ever be examined at Brooks, the base where every pilot had been examined for years. The base was closing and it felt like a ghost town.

  I appeared to be in good health but was very nervous as the examinations approached. During our initial physical six months prior, my counterpart in the South Dakota Air Guard, Ryan Hawk, had passed out numerous times while giving his blood test, making my first military examination experience an ugly one. Hawk was an airline pilot from Minneapolis and had thousands of hours flying people around the country. We would eventually go through all of our training together. I had failed the EKG test three times before the doctor realized my pulse was too low due to running and made me do pushups before retaking the test to get my heart rate up. Funny looking back now—but not so funny at the time.

  As a pilot, I have constantly worried about my eyes. While I was applying for fighter pilot positions, I sat in bars with my friends at college covering my left eye, trying to read football scores on the TV or bar signs at a distance and getting depressed because I couldn’t. While getting my first flight physical for the FAA at age 16, I confided with my grandpa my concern so he pulled me aside and said, “Just remember DEFPOTEC” (pronounced “deaf-po-tek”). It is the 20/20 line on almost every basic eye chart—something he learned taking the Air Force eye tests back in the 1950s. He knows the 20/15 line as well but I never bothered learning that one. That might have got me through that test and every physical since then but it wasn’t going to work with the military’s extensive screening process.

  My final anxiety was that while doing pushups, my right elbow clicks. I remember thinking I probably couldn’t survive boot camp or endure military life with this painless, but annoying problem. Now, hundreds of pushups later, it scares me to think this was a deterrent to me applying—but it illustrates how concerned pilots can be about this physical.

  Air Force Medical Checkout

  You could sense the tension amongst all the pilot candidates in the room. We were all so close to our dream and this was arguably the last big hurdle we had no control over.

  Along with numerous eye examinations, x-rays and hearing tests, the examiners had us take psychological, IQ and emotional stability tests, asking questions like, “Have you ever cheated in solitaire? Do you feel like demons are controlling your actions or thoughts? Do you feel like everyone is out to get you?” It was 500+ similar questions and IQ tests for almost five straight hours.

  My worst moment of anxiety occurred toward the end of the final examination with the flight doc. He had gone through my medical history, tested my reflexes, had me drop my pants and cough, and bend over, before he started listening to my heart.

  “Has anyone ever mentioned you having a heart murmur?” he asked.

  “Uhhh no, what do you mean?” I choked out.

  He listened further in silence while occasionally asking me to flex my abs or clench my fists. Having just completed my fourth marathon and being a healthy eater, I was near anger at this point. He left to find the cardiologist, only to return saying he couldn’t find him so we would do more tests the next day.

  I went to sit in the waiting room with the others, realizing I would have to attempt sleep knowing this could be the end. A fun eighteen hours of pondering my quickly disappearing future as a fighter pilot. I could care less about my heart having a problem, I just wanted to fly a fighter.

  After going over me again with a cardiologist, they told me that because of my thin frame, my heart rests closer to the front of my chest, causing the blood to rush a little quicker through a smaller space, as opposed to air moving in and out of the heart. I passed.

  The doctor later told me that he felt my heart racing the second he mentioned the word murmur. He laughed and said, “I can tell how much this means to you.” I was beyond relieved.

  In total, there were 20 or so in the last class of Brooks AFB physicals. Three didn’t pass their medical and saw their dreams of flying in the United States Air Force disappear.

  Anxiety

  It was nine months from getting hired to starting officer training school in January 2011. The level and varieties of stress I experienced leading up to training were comical. When you want to do something so badly, you notice anything capable of getting in your way, no matter how trivial. Right after being accepted, I remember taking more care crossing the street on campus. Not that I didn’t care about life and limb before, but now I just couldn’t blow my chance to fly a fighter jet.

  I quit playing basketball and all sports having higher probabilities of injury. Every disease or pain brought upon thoughts of the worst-case scenario. I took worrying to a whole new level but it shows how excited I was for this opportunity.

  Reading the news about the wars winding down in the Middle East would also cause anxiety. Would they cut funding? I’d watch as they cut F-35 funding, wondering if this would be the difference in our unit getting them after the F-16.

  I spent a lot of time before flight training started trying to work on my attitude. There were weeks I would feel down. I have a terrible fear of failure, of disappointing myself and those who are a part of my life. I also feared I would be miserable with concern about my effort and performance. It was the first time I had ever been truly excited about an opportunity and I didn’t want to blow it. I felt like this opportunity had given my life purpose, to do what I love while serving others—not just for the United States but for humanity.

  My Grandpa, without being prompted, said, “Try to enjoy every minute.” Five years later, this quote still hangs over my desk.

  Officer Training School

  The journey down to Montgomery, Alabama marked the introduction to military life we see and fear in movies. I’ll be honest—it had made me nervous. I had always been a pretty decent kid and never really got in trouble so I was not used to being reprimanded. I knew the shenanigans with yelling and pushups was part of the game but it still sucked worse than I expected. I kept a daily journal but wouldn’t want to spoil all of the details for those lucky enough to experience it in the future. I will tell a few stories but leave the rest to your imagination.

  The day before it started I wrote:

  “I haven’t even started and it’s considerably more stressful than expected. As the lunch lady today put it, ‘you guys are going to get jacked up tomorrow.’ I have never really missed people terribly until today and everyone else here has prior military experience. I know absolutely nothing about the military and it sounds like that won’t be an excuse tomorrow morning. I have spent half of yesterday and all of today preparing and am still not done setting up the dorm room. If it weren’t for my roommate, there would be no way I could have made it through these setup days.”

  My roommate was prior enlisted in the guard and had received a job flying the KC-135, an air refueling jet, in a different state. He already knew the military customs but was also very sharp and patient with someone new like me.

  The training was interesting, to say the least. At its core, it was not difficult—many classes on leadership and the Air Force throughout the day—but it was all of the bullshit in between and never being comfortable that made it difficult. For two weeks I was always hot or cold, hungry and being yelled at. I was miserable. The thought of walking away from it actually crossed my mind, but that same day an F-16 happened to do a low approach and fly over us, quickly erasing those negative thoughts. I never let the objective out of my mind again.

  There were the cinematic moments of doing pushups in the cold rain and mud but overall, it was much more docile than expected. I think the reputation of the Air Force being a little softer than the other branches is probably true.

  The second morning it was raining and cold when we set up in formations outside. I caused quite the scene when after room inspections I went downstairs without my hydration pack. Chris Young, a Michigan guy who would go on to be one of my best friends, was standing behind me in formation and told me he remembers thinking, “oh shit, that dude doesn’t have a hydration pack. That sucks for him!” He then proceeded to realize he didn’t either. As our flight was ready to leave we were sent back to our rooms and I messed up greetings to numerous officers, all causing pushups and delays. So I ran upstairs, grabbed it, sprinted downstairs, only to mess up greetings to the same officers again, and when I got outside I realized I didn’t have my hat.

  I went back looking for it, doing push-ups along the way as I continued messing up greetings. I had dropped it on the stairs. I ran back down the stairs, messed up the greetings once more, before returning to my flight. As I finally returned, out of breath, the Flight Commander told me “to get out of his flight” so I had to march with another. As I look back on my Air Force career, now five years in, I call this moment the low point.

  It was the longest six weeks of my life but at the end I became a second lieutenant. My grandpa, a retired captain in the Air Force, was able to swear me in making for a special moment as a sixty-year gap in the Fox family military service was reconciled with one crisp salute. It was his dream to be a part of creating a fighter pilot in his family and the first step was behind us.

  My grandfather swearing me in as a Second Lieutenant

  My first marching experience

  A few days before I left for Initial Flight Screening (IFS), I was back home. My grandpa and I headed out to the airport for my final flight in our ole Stearman before I started flying for the Air Force. Generally, my grandpa doesn’t fly with me anymore. He enjoys watching me give other people rides. After I gave a couple rides he asked to fly with me for just a few minutes. He made the comment, “I want to fly with you one last time when I know I am still a better aviator than you. I know how good the Air Force is at training people so you might start getting close.” After almost every ride I have ever given, he has made this comment to the passenger: “too bad you couldn’t fly with a real aviator.”