So There I Was

We Saw the Tracers Ahead of Us sums up one very slow night for Cobra 3-1 over Cambodia. Actually, the NVA led him so badly that he simply went dark, turned left and lived. Now he’s back with RePete and Fig for round two.

A Reunion Worth the Trip

First, one thank-you call from the Gary Sinise Foundation became a sponsored 114th Assault Helicopter Company reunion in Savannah. As a result, attendance jumped from 50 to 170. Then the old gunship pilots tried the Apache simulator. Naturally, Cobra 3-1 saw 220 on an aircraft that stops at 183.

Ike returns with F-100 pilots trimming treetops, a nuclear alert eye patch and the Libya raid. Then his first leg flying a 727 nearly ends on top of a commuter.

Doober and Whiskey-6 take over the watch on YL-37, a combat-veteran Marine UH-34D. Fifty-four bullet holes, one crossbow story, and zero chance of saying no.

Why Smart Pilots Do Dumb Things is the title of Heater’s paper. It helped save the Red Eagles. However, this episode opens with a different lesson: never look at your ten o’clock at Groom Lake.

CJ “Heater” Heatley is back! We promoted him to four-star admiral on the spot. The check is in the mail.

So there he was, in a MiG-21 at the end of the runway at Groom Lake. Off his left side sat the weirdest-shaped thing he’d ever seen. Then the tower called: “Bandit 8, taxi back to the hangar immediately...

“Clara Ship” is what A-6 Intruder pilot Duker radioed when he couldn’t even see the carrier. Forget the ball. He couldn’t find the boat.

Duker went from zero stick time to Navy jets through ROTC at USC. In flight school, food poisoning hit so hard his instructors debated flying him home in a baggage pod. Actually, he survived, then tail-slid an A-4 he was never supposed to tail-slide.

In the A-6, Duker and his bombardier-navigator got in a fist fight over a paper chart. However, they still hit the target on time. He also exp...

Navy P-3 pilot Derek "DA" Adametz beat a collapsed lung and Hodgkin's lymphoma, then fought the waiver board all the way to squadron command.

F-100 pilot Ike flew 195 combat missions with an iron sight and nerves of steel. He takes us from night close air support to a 50-pound-fuel landing to the 1986 Libya raid.

Retired Marine Lt. Col. Tim "Monk" Miller nearly punched out mid-nap over Ramadi, then built the Strike Fighter League, where guns are where it's at.

Vietnam-era Huey pilot RoadRunner joins RePete and Kemo for combat missions, near-disasters, and the Rope Trick — a Thailand R&R story he never fully explains.

This week's episode is a lighter one. It's just Fig and RePete, no guest, trading stories while juggling schedules and a certain eye surgery on the calendar. Before the flying talk starts, Fig recaps a fundraiser for YL-37, the effort to keep a UH-34 Marine helicopter flying as a living memorial. Vietnam-era crew chiefs, dubbed "Ugly Angels," turned up to honor thirty-three squadron mates lost in the war. It was, by Fig's account, truly spectacular.

This week's episode honors Coast Guard rescue pilot John "Sticks" Hall with his brother-in-law's eulogy and son Tyler's letter, plus a night-divert tale from Stretch off the USS Midway.

5 Feet — that's the altitude Roadrunner held on a self-appointed decoy mission in Vietnam, and it's the heart of Episode 227. It's also the reason he walked away with a Bronze Star. This week, RePete and Fig welcome Chuck Howard, callsign Roadrunner. He flew with the 175th Assault Helicopter Company, earning two Bronze Stars and 25 Air Medals for valor. Roadrunner's path started on a Jersey City hammock, watching jets land at Newark. Actually, he almost became a commercial artist before the Army got him first. He walks us through flight school and a co-pilot who froze on short final. Then there's the Ce...

Farewell Sticks is the hardest episode we've ever had to record. On August 20th, we lost our friend, producer, and co-host John "Sticks" Hall in a small plane crash near Bristol, Maine. His son Tyler was flying with him and survived with minor injuries. We're not speculating on cause. Actually, we're not speculating on anything about that day. What we can tell you: it was a Diamond DA20, Sticks bought it last spring, and that's where the facts stop for now. Farewell Sticks: The Man Behind the Mic Sticks was a true unrestricted aviator, qualified in both fixed wing and...

Retired C-141 pilot and author Chill-Rob McD joins Fig and RePete for a night of Starlifter chaos: a Dutch roll at 35,000 feet, a mid-air fight with a runaway yaw damper, and a landing that ends in blown tires and a fifty-foot wall of flame. Add a gunpoint landing fee off the coast of Africa, a loadmaster who nearly ate an elevator cable, and the story behind his book Flight Path: An Irreverent Aviation Tale — this one earns the title He Who Dies with the Most Laugh Wrinkles Wins.

Race to the Shear Switch is exactly what it sounds like. You either cut the cable, or the cable decides your night for you. On Episode 224, retired Coast Guard helicopter pilot Larry Hall makes that call for real. Actually, this episode opens rough. Co-host Fig joins fresh off a highway wreck, rear-ended by a Peterbilt into another rig. However, he's already cracking jokes about mistaking himself for Captain Kirk on the anesthesia. Furthermore, guest Larry Hall isn't new to chaos. The retired Coast Guard aviator flew H-52s off cutters, once herding a boat home with rotor wash. He calls...

This week's Coast Guard aviation stories come courtesy of a special guest co-host: Deuce, a newly retired Coast Guard aviator (and, briefly, the service's senior space attorney). Sticks and Bago hold down the fort while Deuce walks through the Coast Guard's oddball, everything-service mission set — including how commercial space launches are about to become a Coast Guard headache. From there it's classic So There I Was territory: sleeping inside a helicopter to escape a snoring ops officer, a Katrina-era rescue that saved six sailors drifting toward Morocco, and the almost-unbelievable ditching of a Pan Am Clipper next to the Cutter Po...

An update on Fig's serious crash and injuries and an AMAZING story of heroism under fire in Vietnam!

RePete opens the show and a call with Sticks about buying an airplane. Apparently, Sticks needed an airplane-shaped hole in his finances! Before that, two quick health check-ins: Fig is nursing an eye injury (prescription: beach time, not flight time). Meanwhile, Bago is recovering from a pathologic knee fracture, mistaken for arthritis for weeks. Good news — the lesion's benign, and he'll be back producing the show soon. Then things get properly ridiculous. Naval aviator "Vegas" (aka Lieutenant Jones) joins the show. First there's a reference to a sword salute in his Dress Blues behind a hangar... the full story about th...

Fig was involved in a serious crash on Thursday - 16 July. A Short update on his condition.

Putty talks Camp Bastion Attack in Sept of 2012, Lawman describes the most legitimate ejection ever made and Candyman talks traffic tickets in a war zone!

Marine Corps aviator Maui (call sign Cobra-31) joins RePete and Fig for stories spanning three decades of naval aviation: serving under Colonel Don Conroy — the real-life inspiration for The Great Santini — flying Huey gunships out of Marble Mountain, a hair-raising New Year's Eve medevac, training Iranian pilots before the Tehran evacuation, and flying CH-46s in Desert Storm.

In Episode 218 of So There I Was, Fig & RePete bring listeners two stories recorded live at the Harrier Sundown gathering in North Carolina. First up is "Monster," one of the earliest Marine aviators selected for the AV-8B Harrier program back in 1984. He recounts the chaos of being handed the first-ever heavyweight VSTOL launch off an LPH — no computers, no test pilot, just a junior lieutenant, a hazy horizon, and a velocity vector that refused to move. Monster also shares the bookend of his career: selected first to fly the Harrier, and years later, the Marine to retire the Corps' la...

Marine Cobra pilot X-Man flew combat in both Grenada and Beirut — in the same month. He walks RePete and Fig through his path from a test pilot neighbor in Northern Virginia to the cockpit of an AH-1, the Grand Anse campus rescue operation, and a Beirut rules-of-engagement situation where the pilot in command was asked to apologize for returning fire. He declined. At 69, X-Man is still logging AH-1 time with the Army Aviation Heritage Foundation. This one's got range.

This week’s episode was recorded live at King Mackerel’s Beach Tavern Bar & Grill in Moorehead City, NC, right after the historic Harrier Sundown Ceremony at Cherry Point. In Segment 1, call sign Ag—a Texas Aggie and former Harrier XO—takes you on an unforgettable journey crossing the Atlantic to Desert Storm. From a midnight “Casablanca” goodbye at Cherry Point to dangerous night tanking with KC‑10s, metal-to-metal probe contact, a thunderstorm with St. Elmo’s fire, and a tense close ID with an Israeli E‑2, Ag’s story is a masterclass in nerve, precision, and naval aviation under pressure.Segment 2 shi...

Buggsy joins us to talk Flight school, Joining the Navy, Flying Harriers, Sundown Ceremony and more!

A near mid-ground collision by Strecken and

Just to let you know an episode is coming!

Col Bill Wehrung - Horny sits with us to talk Naval Academy, Marine Aviation - including 235 combat missions in Vietnam, getting hit twice and an amazing career spanning 3 decades... starting before Safety Standards were a 'thing!'

Fig & RePete go over several aviation topics - including the F/A-18 Growler Mid Air collision in Mountain Home Idaho, last week.

Brain joins us to talk Flight School, Harriers, Drones and F-35s! Funny, touching... Don't miss this Great American!

Bonk, Top Gun, Marine MAWTS-1 and Test Pilot Stories kick off with him bobbing in the Pacific after less than 500 flight hours in total flight time! Actually, that’s just the warmup. This week on So There I Was, Fig and RePete sit down with Bonk, a former Test Pilot School graduate, Top Gun instructor, and MAWTS pilot whose career somehow became more insane every decade. One minute he’s failing eye exams. Consequently, he almost misses aviation entirely. The next minute he’s disconnecting A-4 flight controls in flight and wondering if this was really the best career choice. Then t...

This week kicks off with Kemo back in the saddle, and it goes sideways immediately! Actually, this one starts fast. No warmup. No easing in. Just straight into stories that make you stop and go, wait… what? Kemo’s back. And if you’ve heard him before, you already know this is going to be ridiculous. If you haven’t—well, buckle up. This is one of those episodes where the stories don’t just escalate… they stack. First, we get into how his name came to be. Sounds simple, right? It’s not. Then somehow we’re talking about Marine Corps comma...

Doober comes back to tell of his acquisition of former US Marine Corps H-34 helicopter, YL-37. The helicopter restoration story starts with a mission that sounds simple. It is not. Actually, it quickly turns into a “wait, what?” situation. This episode picks up with Doober and the ongoing saga of bringing YL-37 back from the brink. The aircraft is not just old. It is stubborn. Furthermore, every step forward seems to uncover two new problems. At first, it looks manageable. Then reality shows up. Parts are rare. Systems are tired. And the deeper you go, the more you realize this is n...

This is part two with Al Cisneros, and this time, it opens in a hurry. No notice. Grab the jet. Haul critical intel. Get it to Saigon—fast. Actually, what starts as a straightforward courier mission quickly takes on weight. The tasking is urgent, the stakes are real, and the realization hits that this flight matters far beyond just flying from point A to point B. Furthermore, that opening story sets the tone for the entire episode. From there, the conversation expands into a full career arc. Early uncertainty. Lessons learned the hard way. Moments of pressure that shape judgment an...

This episode drops you straight into one of those situations pilots train for—but hope never happens. A routine mission turns serious fast when the fuel state stops being a number and starts becoming a problem. Not a “tight on gas” problem. A zero fuel over hostile territory problem. And now the math matters. Range, burn rate, options… none of them look good. As the situation unfolds, you’ll hear how quickly cockpit priorities shift. There’s no room for denial. Gauges are questioned. Assumptions get challenged. And the reality sets in: this might end with an ejection into a very bad pla...

Fig & RePete kick back for a raw hangar-talk session unpacking aviation’s razor edge: LaGuardia runway crash layers failing Swiss-cheese style, sim freezes hiding ghost jets, and C-130 crews lining up on the wrong damn strip packed with paratrooper Chinooks. Lessons learned? Night viz traps, CRM meltdowns, bozo announcements, and “shut up, navigator” tricks that nearly sparked war’s biggest fireball—plus hand-on-head foul-deck signals and trainee controller fumbles. Irreverent, technically sharp close-call confessions that’ll have pilots nodding and laughing darkly.

The C-130 flight engineer is a disappearing breed. However, the stories remain. In this episode of So There I Was, DC pulls back the curtain on high-stakes aircrew life. We explore the Air National Guard culture and the "routine" moments that turn sideways. Why is the Flight Engineer being phased out? We discuss what is lost when a computer replaces a human eye. We also spend some time chatting about DCArtworks - Online at DCArtworks.Net - DC is a sponsor of our show and - Go check out his amazing work - you will want SOMETHING either for yourself...

Naval aviation stories rarely go as planned. This episode of So There I Was features Matt “Taco” Bell sharing his wildest moments... This episode of So There I Was delivers multiple “wait, what?” moments from Matt “Taco” Bell, from getting in trouble over a low transition (yeah… that didn’t go well), to realizing just how terrifying it is to be the instructors' instructor in Kingsville, to being “in the barrel” at night trying to get aboard the boat. And talk about a small world?!?! -- The jumpseat story hits. Consequently, this is one of those episodes where every segment somehow tops the las...

Nasty’s worst day Navy starts when a young Tomcat hopeful hears “you’re a qual” on the radio, then “you’re a disqual” at the ladder. Consequently, that gut punch on the Lex knocks his timeline off, pairs him with Bug Roach, and quietly sets the stage to help save two lives later. Actually, he walks from Key West heartbreak in a TA-4J Skyhawk to the bridge of Nimitz, with failures, promotions, and a near-buoy strike with an admiral watching. Furthermore, he digs into rules of engagement over Afghanistan, AI-driven factories that can out-build China, and why straight, honest leaders...

He Heard Me Go By pilot story comes from Navy pilot Stretch Curran, who flew the massive A-3 / EA-3 Skywarrior “Whale,” the largest jet routinely launched from aircraft carriers. In Episode 201 of So There I Was, Stretch joins us for a wide-ranging hangar-talk conversation about flying the Whale from carriers, the realities of multi-crew naval aviation, and the kind of moments that make pilots stop talking for a second. Furthermore, Stretch describes launching at night from USS Midway when an electrical fire and system failures suddenly complicate the mission. Consequently the crew must stabilize a very large jet in darkness and...