The Amazing Engineering of Rescue Helicopters - Smarter Every Day 289

Hey, it's me, Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. You're smart; you know how this works by now. We're in the middle of a deep dive series into the US Coast Guard, and they're amazing. We've talked about how they rescue people. We've talked about their gear like the boat, response boat, medium. We've even talked about how they do search patterns.

And today is an amazing subject. We're going to explore the MH65 Dolphin, an incredible aircraft. Now, yes, they're transitioning to Jayhawks at this point, which is a newer platform. But the Dolphin is an incredible aircraft, and we're going to explore everything about how it works. Let's go get smarter every day and let's learn about this amazing aircraft.

All right, so what's your official title?
[J] Amt 1, James Hockenberry.
[D] What's AMT?
[J] Aviation maintenance technician, first class.
[D] Okay, awesome. Sounds good. So you're responsible for what on the aircraft?
[J] So I am basically, they call it a hoist operator in the civilian world, but I'm a flight mechanic. So we back up the pilots, the copilot, and then we also hoist. We control the hoist and the winch.
[D] Are you also a certified flight mechanic?
[J] I am, yeah.
[D] Okay, so you own the bird.
[J] Well, consider the pilot owns the bird; we just do the maintenance on it. So the pilot's in command; he has the choice whether we're going to do it or not. We're just backing up the pilots, is what we do. So if we break down or go somewhere, we're the ones that are going to do the maintenance or look at it and say, "Hey, sir, this is the problem. This is what's going on." And then they're going to be the ultimate decision on what happens and who makes that call.

[D] All right, so let's start from the top. This is a Dolphin, right?
[J] Dolphin, yes. This is one of the major inspections we do. We take it all apart. It's more for corrosion, making sure that there's nothing wrong with the aircraft, finding little things that we need to fix prior to them actually breaking.
[D] The tail, things like that.
[J] The tail rotor.
[D] It's actually more like a fan, isn't it?
[J] Yeah. This actually counteracts the rotor head turning. So this will actually basically push so that the rotor head will turn in one direction, and this pushes the opposite direction to keep us straight. Got you. It's controlled by the pedals upfront through this shaft right here. So that's the tail rotor drive shaft. And then.
[D] Is that a hydraulic actuator?
[J] Mhmm. So what ends up happening is when hydraulics are on, this pushes in and out and makes the blades turn in and out.
[D] So next question is, if this was originally a civilian aircraft, I know there's two types of hydraulic fluid. There's sky draw and then there's a military hydraulic fluid. What does this use?
[J] This uses the military red. Sky draw is blue. We use straight metal oil.
[D] I wanted to pause and say, I'm sorry; this is what's happening. I'm very excited about this helicopter. Hockenberry is clearly very excited about this helicopter. And we're matching each other's energy. I'm saying every word I've ever heard about helicopters, but this is okay, right? Because I've learned a lot over my helicopter experience. But at the same time, I'm still trying to learn. You'll see that. We're just going to totally hit my ignorance wall here in a second. It's very interesting when that happens. But I apologize for trying to name drop all these words I've heard recently, whatever.

I'm just sorry. Is this JP8, this aircraft? What jet fuel do you use?
[J] JP8, yeah. Jet A, JP8, all that stuff. So we use normal stuff that any aviation fuel is going to be using.
[D] Awesome. So he's taking the... Is this called the cowling? What is this called?
[J] Yeah, we call that the Dog House. That's what we call it. But yeah, it's a transition cowling going from the engines back to the drive shaft.
[D] What's the tail called? Just the tail?
[J] The Fenestron.
[D] The Fenestron?
[J] Tail Fenestron.
[D] Okay.
[J] That's what we call it.
[D] And is this metal or fiberglass?
[J] Fiberglass.
[D] Okay.
[J] Kevlar and carbon fiber and fiberglass.
[D] Carbon?
[J] Yeah, this actually the primary structure, which is most of this right here where the tail shroud is, is actually Kevlar. Most of this is Kevlar.
[D] Oh, wow!
[J] Yeah. Everything's lightweight, as you can see. We can take everything off by hand. Even our blades, our blades are all taken off by hand.
[D] Really?
[J] Yeah, you only need two guys, one on the head. He pops the pins. Which...
[D] Sir, did you just move the tail rotor by hand up there?
[J] Yeah, you can move it by hand.
[D] Can you...
[J] Head's turning.
[D] Oh, wow. And did I see you move it by putting your hand inside the-
[J] Yeah, you have to make sure that it can freely turn.
[D] Can you do it again, please?
[M] Yeah, of course. No problem.
[Inaudible]
[D] Wow. That's amazing. Thank you.
[J] So that's a free power turbine. So it basically runs like... How can I explain it? So it's like your bicycle. As it turns and you go faster, it'll keep up with the bicycle until it just keeps pushing it.
[D] Almost like a clutch.
[J] Yeah, it's a slip clutch, basically is what it is. So it just keeps going until it gets to self-sustaining, and then it just runs, and it just free power turbine. We have a vertical stabilizer and a horizontal stabilizer.
[D] Why do you have the vertical?
[J] Because that's-So if you're going straight and if you are going a certain speed, which I think it's 80 knots or above, if you're going straight, then your tail is not even needed. If you're going a certain speed and you lose your tail, you can actually counteract the tail by these. If you look at them from an angle, they're actually tilted like this.
[D] What do you mean? Tilted like what?
[J] So they're basically tilted out.
Oh, I see. And so if you look at the Vert stab, too, you can see how it cambers that way.
[D] Yes.
[J] Just like the fins do as well. So that way, if you're going straight, it's counteracting the blades on the head.
[D] Okay.
[J] So that way, if you're going straight, the blades are turning this way. It's actually trying to push you the other way.
[D] It's not called on a helicopter; it's not P factor.
[J] No.
[D] No, but it's something like that.
[J] Yeah, it's kinda the same concept. I mean, if you look at it, it's just like a blade of a fixed wing. So you have its back, which is curved, and its flat face.
[D] That's cool. So it counteracts as you're going through the air.
[D] That's fun. What do we have here?
[J] So these are your lights. These are for at night or for...
[D] Those are lights?
[J] Yep, little diodes.
[D] Things have changed.
[J] Yeah. These actually are for infrared. Those, you won't be able to see them. That's for when we do our secret squirrel missions. They'll have these on and turn everything else off.
[D] You guys will go blacked out?
[J] Yeah, we'll go blacked out.
[D] Even though it's orange?
[J] Yep.
[D] Really?
[J] Yeah, so we do...
[D] Drug stuff.
[J] Yeah, we do an RWAI mission, too.
[D] I don't know what that means.
[J] Rotary-wing-intercept. So we do it here as well, but it's mostly done in Atlantic City. And if we're doing secret squirrel stuff, we'll turn these on. And then there's a light here which shines on the Coast Guard. And then these actually have them on the ends, too, for all of our lights.
[D] Is this an antenna right here?
[J] It is, yeah.
[D] HF? That's your high frequency?
[J] Yeah, high frequency antenna. And then, of course, everything is like a normal aircraft or helicopter. Everything's got stations. You got your 66, 30, 88, 40, and everything is designated from the nose up back, like your datum lines, all that stuff is the same exact concept.

[D] These data lines that he's talking about, those are imaginary planes, and you can measure things from those planes. And so usually they're in a major rivet joint or at a firewall or something like that. It's common for most aircraft. So you know this thing inside and out.
[J] I mean, I've been on it 17 years, so I would hope so.
[D] Retractable landing gear.
[J] Yep, retractable landing gear.
[D] So this isn't an APU; this is just environmental for...
[J] Just an air conditioner.
[D] You guys are just... That's posh. Let's be real.
[J] It's because it gets so hot here during the summers, so they just use those. They used to hook into the side, but we need to get smaller tubes to hook them in. So it'll actually blow through all the air conditioning inside.
[D] Can we walk up and see the power plant?
[J] Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead.
[D] Sweet. So this is- So we got the suck, squeeze, bang, blow.
[J] Yep, that's it. Right there.
[D] All right, so show me what we got.
[J] Accessory drive section, that's the drive shaft that goes in through here through flex couplings, and then it goes into the transmission cowling, transmission deck. We call this the flower pot. And then the drive shaft basically comes through here. It's like you said, intake, compression, combustion, free power turbine. They added this later just because one of them actually exploded back in the day a long time ago. So they added this on there, and then they figured out what it was. It was just different types of fins, all that stuff. So they put this on there just to protect the aircraft. If the free power turbine did excessively go off and nothing stopped it, if it exploded, it wouldn't damage the other engine or the blades or anything. So this would literally just smash it and block it up.

[D] So on run up for a helicopter, I hear a lot about TGT's, turbine to gas temperatures.
[J] Yeah.
[D] Where are you measuring that at? Is there a temperature sending unit in here?
[J] Yeah, so we have our thermal couples. So it's just like a normal thermal couple. You have two different thermal couples in there, measures the difference in temperatures, and then gives you your temperature and it sends it to the front of the... We monitor it, but it's like-.
[D] It's not part of the run of procedure?
[J] Our big section is our power turbine. Okay. So N1, N2, and that's all done by FADEC. FADEC monitors all of our systems. So full authority digital engine control unit.
[D] You can see everything.
[J] Yep. It monitors everything up in the cockpit.
[D] Okay, so this is the reservoir for-.
[J] That's the engine reservoir, yep.
[D] Okay.
[J] Mobilejet 254.
[D] Where's the hydraulic reservoir?
[J] There's two of them. So primary and secondary, and they're right here. And then they come through here, and you have your servos.
[D] So this is your big collective servo. I guess it's all the same, right? The big actuators?
[J] Yeah. So we as mechanics, we just go right, left, forward, and aft. It's kinda opposite.
[D] Right, left, because this is the side that you work on.
[J] Well, it's technically because the aircraft, the head turns, and it's like Isaac Newton said, helicopter is not meant to fly. And they figured out that it needs to be biting before and drafting after.
[D] Gyroscopic precession?
[J] Yep. So it's before and after. So technically, this actually hits here.
[D] What Hockenberry is talking about here is something called gyroscopic precession. And basically, as the rotor system is turning, if I want to tilt the helicopter this way, I actually give that command in the back. It's a cyclic and collective mixing issue. And if you want to learn more about this, I did a whole deep dive series on how helicopters work, of which this video will be a part of. So go check that out. Check out the video on cyclic and collective to understand gyroscopic precession better. It's a fascinating topic.

[J] So as it turns, it bites in whatever inputs they put in, it's.
[D] Actually-so in your mechanical interaction with this, you say, my right is right here because of gyroscopic precession.
[J] Correct.
[D] So you actually think about that while you're working?
[J] We have to, yeah.
[D] Yeah, that's cool.
[J] So the mechanics also do track and balance. So as we do track and balance, heads turned. As we do track and balance, we're actually measuring the distance of the track based on what this PCR is doing.
[D] PCR?
[J] Pitch control rod.
[D] Okay.
[J] So we adjust these. So if we do a major... That plane is not off. So when we do a major inspection, we actually pull this all off. So this whole head will come off, and then the PCR is readjusted. But when we take it off, it's not going to be the same as when we put it back together, because we may add new swash plate. We may add new Starflex, bushings, rods. We may add something that was new that broke before.
[D] What's up with the shims here?
[J] So that's weighting. So we weight. So when we do our track and balance, we take everything, and then it takes an input, and the actual machine puts it together and says, "Okay, this is what you need to do." So we'll adjust the PCRs, we'll add weight, and we'll move our trim tabs. The trim tabs, you just bend them, right?
[J] Bend them, yes. We just bend them. And so it takes all that input, and the machine actually does it itself and then tells us what we do. We do it on the ground, then we do it in a hover, and then we do it in flight. Okay. And then after we get out of a hover, we go into flight. That's it. We're out of hover. We stay in going in forward flight. Got it.

[D] That's awesome, man. That's cool. This episode of Smart Every Day has a new sponsor, and this sponsor has totally changed the game for my buddy's business. This episode is sponsored by Shipstation. Shipstation is a way that you can save money on shipping things. And if you sell things online, you can consolidate all of the places you sell things into one dashboard, and it is an amazing product that saves you money. My buddy John has a company called JJ George. JJ George makes grill accessories like these big, nice cedar wooden tables for people that use grills. They've got these really cool torches that people use to light the charcoal. I asked John how they use Shipstation.
[J] Shipstation has been a game-changer for us, and we use it every day.
[D] What does it do?
[J] It allows us to take all of our orders from all the different platforms we sell them on. We have a website. We sell through Amazon, Walmart, Etsy. And so it brings everything, addresses, products ordered all into one dashboard. And we can print and ship. We don't have to copy-paste to anything.
[D] The cool thing about Shipstation is everything is under one dashboard. You're able to control all the shipments that you use, and it made everything streamlined so that you can reduce the amount of labor that goes into shipping things and it makes their e-commerce business possible. Pretty smart rednecks here in Alabama. Shipping out grill products. The way you can do this, if you want to try it, go to shipstation.com/smarter. You get 60 days for free. You can try it. Would you recommend trying it for 60 days?
[J] Absolutely. I think it's one of those things. If you try it, you're hooked? Yeah.
[D] They actually said that. They said people that use it for like a year use it for life.
[J] Oh, yeah. We couldn't live without it.
[D] Okay, shipstation.com/smarter, try it for 60 days for free. Thank you very much, John and Roger, for showing me how this thing works. The one thing that's very, very, very different from any aircraft I've ever been on is this bad boy right here.
[D] The Winch.
[J] The hoist.
[D] Hoist?!
[J] We call it our hoist.
[D] It's not the winch.
[J] No, hoist.
[D] And it's hydraulically actuated?
[J] Yeah.
[D] So does that mean that this is basically a... can we-
[J] 3,000 PSI, and then it's electrically operated. So it's electrically operated and hydraulically basically goes up and down by hydraulics.
[D] Oh, I got you.
[J] So electrically, it goes in and out, and then hydraulically, it goes up and down.
[D] What do you mean goes in and out? So we boom it in and out. So it's got an electrical boom actuator inside here.
[D] I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying.
[J] Let me show you.
[D] Okay, so you're a pilot?
[J] He's a flight mech.
[D] Flight mech?
[J] So it booms in like this. So you're going to get to do this. You're going to be hooked up. And then this will be up, and then it'll boom in electrically and boom out electrically.
[D] Really?
[J] Yeah.
[D] So we have it on-Whatcha you got there? It's a handheld pendant
[D] Yeah. -to control it. So you can boom in and out.
[D] So electrically, boom in and out. And hydraulically, up and down. The actuator, this whole control panel is what controls the operation of the hoist.
[D] Does it hoist up and down very quickly? It's 200 feet variable. Its 200 feet per minute.
[D] I don't know. Is that fast?
[J] It's pretty fast.
[D] Really?
[J] Yeah, it goes pretty quick.
[D] You can hurt a swimmer if you do it too fast.
[D] You can drop them too fast?
[J] You can drop them too fast or you can hurt them, like bringing them up. You'll feel it when you start doing it, when you do it tomorrow or whatever, you'll feel it. Literally, if we call it two-blocking, which means that we go full up, it'll jerk you up. It'll hurt your back.
[D] So when you're flying and you got this thing boomed in and out, so right now we're about halfway, right?
[J] It's halfway.
[D] It's halfway. Do you mind booming it all the way in so I can see where it tucks in there?
[J] Jim, open the hatch so he can see where he's going to stand.
[D] Oh, so.
[J] That's how we hoist.
[D] And the rotors right there.
[J] Yeah.
[D] That's crazy.
[J] We'll put it all the way in. And then we'll boom it all the way in to hook up the swimmer or device. Bring it in the cab and hook up whatever we need, bring it back up and then...
[D] Could your hand hit the rotor? I know; I mean, it's a dumb question.
[J] Yeah, don't stick your hands up. So opening that hatch is a big deal.
[J] Yeah, this hatch is, I mean, it's there for our convenience, where we can see things. But you're standing and hoisting, I wouldn't advise reaching up like that.

[D] So a helicopter is pushing down. So does that change its aerodynamics? When you start like this?
[J] If you're flying forward... We get more bite. Is that what you're asking? We get more bite to hold us, so we're burning fuel faster.
[D] Yes.
[J] Yes. So we're burning more fuel than what we normally would just flying around. So our normal flight time is between two hours and two and a half hours. If we go straight into hoisting, it's about 30 minutes because we're just pulling power constantly.
[D] But you don't have this boom forward.
[J] We keep it boomed out.
[D] You keep it boomed out?
[J] Yeah.
[D] Okay. And because you fly more efficiently like that?
[J] It doesn't really make it... I don't think it matters much. It doesn't really... If we took this off, it wouldn't save us any fuel. I mean, it may save us weight because this thing's heavy, but it's not going to save us much fuel. Aerodynamically, I don't think it affects forward flight or anything.
[D] Got you.
[J] The wind doesn't really catch it all that much.
[D] Are you able to drop the hoist now?
[J] Yeah, we can turn it on. Yeah, you want to turn it on?
[D] Yeah.
[J] That's an auxiliary hydraulic unit over there? You call it a HPU? What do you call that thing?
[J] It's a hydraulic power unit, ground power unit.
[D] Is that the speed?
[J] No. Not at all.
[D] That's just appropriate for being on the ground here. First 10 feet, it goes slow. And if you keep going, there's a switch.
[J] You should ask him how slow that actually is.
[D] How slow?
[J] Fifty feet. Fifty feet per minute.
[D] So is there another saying for that?
[J] No, he's right. He just got FMI qualified.
[D] Oh, all right.
[J] So he's an instructor now. We get to spot out fast it goes right there.
[D] It's very fast.
[J] Yeah, it's pretty quick.
[D] Steel cable?
[J] Yes. Stainless steel. We have 240 feet of it. Yeah, we could hoist safely at about 200 feet.
[D] What's the preferred height off the water?
[J] Thirty-five feet? Thirty-five, yeah.
[D] Why 35? Is that out of ground effect?
[J] It's in ground effect. So it gives us more power, more fly out. And then it just depends on what the real hoist is. So if you're going... Most of our cases are shrimping boats. So if we get a shrimp boat, they have all that rigging that's everywhere. So that rigging is really, really dangerous for us to put a swimmer through. And the pendulum effect really takes effect. So the lower we can be, the better for the swimmer it is.

So what happens is if you start a pendulum down low, it'll start, and then as he comes up, it'll get worse and worse and worse as he's coming up, and same vice versa.
[D] Because momentum is conserved.
[J] Right.
[D] So if it's swinging as the radius of the pendulum gets smaller...
[J] It gets faster. And then same as he's going down. So if he starts with a little swing as he goes down, it gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
[D] Okay, we've got our survivor in the basket here, right? And if we think about our pendulum equation, the period or the length of time between swings on the pendulum is a function of the length of the string. Now, I can change the length of the string here. Now, here's a couple of things that Hockenberry told us. Number one, if I have a really small swing right there, by the time I increase it or, I guess, hoist it up, it gets really fast. That becomes a problem. I got my swing, I increase it, boom. Up there, it's a problem. You could hurt the person as you swing them up. I'm doing a bad job. You can see that the period goes down and that's a function of the pendulum equation.

The other thing he said is if you have a low swing, like a really, I don't know, like two feet, let's say, by the time you let it out because of the conservation of momentum, that becomes a much greater distance down below. And that's a problem if you've got a boat with a mast on it. So pendulum motion, when you have a person you're trying to save in a basket, becomes a really big deal. And we're actually going to get to see that in a future episode when I'm in the basket. Very interesting.
600 pounds max.
[J] That's it.
[D] That's a two-person lift.
[J] Yep, that's it.
[D] This is your float?
[J] Yeah, this is one of our floats. And we have another one right there. This one right here. This is our back right float.
[D] Yep.
[J] And so these will go off.
[D] You punch them with pyro? How do they activate them?
[J] No, they're helium.
[D] Got it.
[J] They're done by helium.
[D] Okay.
[J] And then the pilot can do it upfront. There's three spots. The pilot has it on his collective, the copilot. And then there's like a shot upfront that they can push it to. I can show all that to you.
[D] So you'll do it when you touch down at the water. Or before?
[J] So they have to do it before because it's not water activated. So if they hit the water and they haven't hit those, then it's going to sink.
[D] Okay.
[J] And it usually will only stay afloat for four minutes.
[D] Got it.
[J] In light winds and stuff like that.
[D] With the floats?
[J] With the floats.
[D] Oh, wow. So it's just for egress?
[J] It's because the head is so heavy that it's going to roll. That's why when we do our training, we simulate we're rolling. Because it's going to happen. It's just a matter of time.
[D] Right, got it.
[J] The best case scenario would be it stays upright and you can all get out. Which it's happened before, but it's more than likely it's going to roll over.
[D] Got you. Can I hop in?
[J] Yeah, go ahead.
[D] I'll go in after you. This is your office.
[J] Well, so they're doing their inspections, which is cool.
[D] Yeah. Show me around your office here.
[J] Yeah. So they're basically doing a whole seven, 14, 30, 90-day, and we're doing a corrosion inspection. So we're just checking to make sure... Most of the stuff, these are frames. So this is part of the frame. So this corrodes a lot. We get a lot of corrosion here because the swimmer sits right here. Okay. So a lot of the water that when the swimmers, they're wet when they come in. So a lot of the water will get into here, and corrosion is our worst enemy on these aircraft.
[D] Okay.
[J] That is our bread and butter is trying to keep these out from being corroded.
[D] So is that a main structural member right there?
[J] Yeah, this is. So if this corrodes, then the plane's done. These are Texas patches. Those are the same thing. If they get a crack or corrode-
[D] Oh, because of the shape of the Texas patch.
[J] Yeah, that's why we call it Texas patch. Our fish plate, same thing. But if those crack or if they get any corrosion in here, we have the plane's grounded. We can't fly it until we replace the stringer.
[D] That's a big deal.
[J] This is our main... This is where we're normally replacing stuff.
[D] Spend all your time. So in here, what do we have?
[J] So this is all the electronics, 1980s. Great stuff.
[D] Rockwell Collins stuff.
[J] Yeah, super neat. We call them tweets, AETs. I'm an AMT. I do everything but this. I don't like this stuff.
[D] Yeah, you don't like twist and wires?
[J] No, I don't like getting shocked.
[D] So where would you sit in the aircraft?
[J] Right where you're standing.
[D] Okay, so there will be some seat here.
[J] There will be a seat. It goes left and right. The swimmers, they upgraded their seats about seven or eight years ago, I want to say. So theirs move now too. They used to not. They used to be on this little orange thing that just sat on the deck. And a lot of guys were having back problems, so they went to a new seat and it allows them... We can close it now and move it off to the side. Now we can get all of our stuff out a little easier. Then our seat does the same thing. It doesn't collapse, but it moves all the way to the left or to the right, and it swivels 360 degrees.
[D] Which one is the pilot, and which one is the copilot?
[J] Copilot and pilot. It's French, so it's opposite. That's how I remember it. It's not like your car. It's opposite of your car. So copilot, pilot.
[D] Okay. Copilot on the left, pilot on the right. Yeah, pilot's near the hoist.
[J] Yes. So he's in charge. He's the one that makes all the calls. He tells us yes, we're going to do this or no, we're not, or it's too sketchy. But as a crew, we do it too. But he's the ultimate factor.
[D] Is this the... I mean, this door is just for EVAC?
[J] Correct. That door that's normally closed, we don't ever really open it unless we're just doing our engine runs or we need to go out that side or something. That door is normally closed. It's just an egress hazard, our egress. That's awesome.
[D] You got all your stuff here like, Hey, we're in the water, come find this stuff.
[J] Yeah, flares. We got our E-purb, all that stuff over here.
[D] Does this fly? Our E-Purb is in the back, sorry. Yeah, this is our cable cutters.
[D] You can cut the hoist cable?
[J] Yeah, we cut the hoist cable. And then we have a quick splice.
[D] Right here.
[J] Yep, quick splice is here now. It used to be over there. We changed a couple of things around. So this is the quick splice. So if something does happen and say, I bring John in and he scrapes along the edge and he gets a big gouge in it, but we're rescuing people, I can cut the cable, I can put this on, and we can still hoist in an emergency procedure.
[D] Holy cow.
[J] Yeah. And this will hold him. This is 600 pounds rated just like that.
[D] But you can't hoist all the way up when you do that.
[J] Correct. So there's a limiting factor on that. You have to remember that you cut the cable. You won't have that 50 feet per minute. You go to that 200 to 50, that rated.
[D] Oh, I see.
[J] So if you go all the way up and two-block it like I was talking about before, if you do that, you're probably going to slip this or you're going to damage that hoist or John could fall out.
[D] So this isn't a splice like... This is like a new end to the cable.
[J] Well, it wraps. So I can show you how it looks. So this is it, and it literally tells you how to lay the line. I've never used this. I hope to never use this because I know it's going to be bad if we're using this, but we have it in an emergency situation. My goal-
[D] Is it titanium?
[J] Just because John and I-
[D] It weighs nothing.
[J] Yeah, it's really light. Just because John and I, we went to high school together and everything, I look at it that way like these are my brothers, and I don't want to leave them on scene. I want to get them in my aircraft and get home safely. I don't want to leave them. So if I have to go to this, that's what I'm going to do. I think 99% of everybody in this aircraft feels the same way that swimmers are part of the family, and they're the ones in the water. We need to get them back in the plane because it's going to do more damage and it's going to be a longer night if we're leaving them on scene and trying to come back and get them. You know what I mean?
[D] Do we want them to know that, though?
[J] Ahhh, I think John already knows that.
[D] So is there a really interesting camaraderie between the swimmer and the... It's AMT. Am I saying that right?
[J] Correct, yeah. Flight mech.
[D] Flight mech.
[J] Yeah, swimmers and flight mech. I like to say these guys are my heroes because I can jump out of a helicopter, but I can't jump back into it.
[D] Oh, yeah. Somebody's got to hit the switch.
[J] Right. So these guys are my heroes.
[D] Oh, wow. That's pretty interesting.
[J] And you see what they're doing. I try and tell people, flight mechs are super cool. They're going to take apart an entire helicopter, put it all back together, and then go fly. It's pretty rad.
[D] That's pretty cool.
[J] I admire them a lot. What they do, there's no way I can do that. They keep us alive. Anything we can do as swimmers to help them out with it, we're a really good team. We work well as a good team.
[D] That's awesome. Well, thanks, man. I'm looking forward to it.
[J] You're welcome.
[D] Thank you.

All right, the Smarter Every Day Coast Guard series continues. In an upcoming video, I'm going to be the duck, they call it. The person in the basket that they save on Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans. It is an amazing experience, and I think you will really enjoy that. We get to see all this stuff in action. We get to see how it works, and it's really cool. So if you'd like to consider checking that out, you could subscribe to Smarter Every Day if you're into that sort of thing. If not, no big deal. Also, if you go to smartereveryday.com, there's an email list. You can click and sign up, and I'll just email you when I upload that video, which is really cool. I don't spam you, I promise.

Also, big thanks to everybody that supports Smarter Every Day on patreon.com/smartereveryday. I am grateful you helped me make this stuff, and I'm super, super thankful. Anyway, that's it. I'm Destin. You're getting smarter every day. Have a good one. Bye.