GOING SUPERSONIC with U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds! Pulling 7 G's in an F-16 -Smarter Every Day 235
Destin: Hey, it's me, Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. Today, we're going to hang out with the Thunderbirds of the US Air Force. We're going to see if we can break the sound barrier. The temptation, when you're making a video about yourself flying in an F-16, is to use the power of editing to make yourself look as awesome as possible. Do I need two chin straps because I have two chins? But that's not this video, because I'm not awesome. These pilots, however, they're incredible.
But I learned, through this experience, that an F-16 is very different than a T-38. Several years ago, I went on a familiarization flight at Randolph Air Force base in a T-38, a dual engine trainer they use to train their fighter pilots. I learned a lot about the effects of g-forces on your cardiovascular system, and for the first time in my life, I felt the forces of a fighter jet-- 5 G's, in fact. When I got the itinerary from the Thunderbirds, and I started reading stuff, and it said things like, get plenty of sleep, I was like, oh, I haven't really done that. And then it's saying hydrate. And when you think you're hydrated, drink some more. This looks like it's pretty much a big deal, but, you know, I've done the fighter jet thing before. So it's got to be similar, right? I got this. Man, was I wrong.
Let's start with who the Thunderbirds are. They consist of 12 officers, eight of whom are highly experienced fighter pilots, and 120 enlisted personnel from nearly 30 different career fields. These are the crew chiefs, the mechanics, and the technicians who make sure the jets are always mission ready. Every member had to apply and was handpicked in a highly competitive selection process. Their mission is to plan and present precision aerial maneuvers and to exhibit the capabilities of modern high-performance aircraft and the high degree of professional skill required to operate those aircraft. They've done this with a variety of jets over the years, and they're currently operating the F-16 Fighting Falcon, more commonly known as the Viper.
The FAA and the military highly restrict supersonic flight over land due to sonic booms. My flight was scheduled to happen before an airshow practice at Keesler Air Force base in Biloxi, Mississippi. Biloxi is right on the Gulf of Mexico, and there's a stretch of open water between there and my home state of Alabama where supersonic flight is approved. I am finally going to get to break the sound barrier, which is something I've been dreaming about ever since I learned about the physics of supersonic flight.
This is my pilot, Thunderbird 8, call sign Flack, Major Jason Markzon. Turns out Flack was trained by Supa, the same pilot instructor that took me up in the T-38, which made me feel a little bit more confident about what we were about to do. He explained to me that the F-16 airframe was incredibly maneuverable, to the point that the human body is the limiting factor.
Major Jason Markzon: Really, what we'll do when we first get into air space is we're going to do a G awareness exercise, or g-ex. So we'll accelerate to about 400 knots, and then we'll pull 4 to 5 G's.
Destin: You're going to test my limits.
Major Jason Markzon: Yeah.
Destin: You probably know this, but just to review, right now you and I are in 1 G. We feel like normal gravity is around us, right? If you're in a fighter jet, and you pull back on the stick, and you fly in an arc, it's going to feel like you're being pressed through the seat because of that radial acceleration. It's like when you're driving a car and you turn real fast. Everything slides across the dash-- same thing. So if you're in a 2 G maneuver, your 10-pound head is going to feel like it weighs 20 pounds. If you're in a 7 G maneuver, your 10-pound head's going to feel like it weighs 70 pounds. And I conceptually know all this stuff, and I understand the math, but what Flack wants to do is he actually wants to subject me to this environment.
Major Jason Markzon: Well, it's a warm up. It's not so much a test in it's like, hey, can I-- are we ready to pull G's?
Destin: Are you an adult, or are you a child?
Major Jason Markzon: Make sure our connections are good. Can you breathe appropriately? Things like that.
Destin: OK.
Major Jason Markzon: So your G strain hasn't changed probably since your T-38 ride.
Destin: So when we start, you're going to know instantly if I can hang or not.
Major Jason Markzon: Pretty close. Pretty close, yeah.
Destin: OK, cool.
Major Jason Markzon: Yeah, I'll be listening to your breathing, so I can give you feedback if there's any things that I see. And then when we do our next-- our actual G awareness exercise, it will be a 6 to 7 G 180 degree turn that we'll do.
Destin: Holy cow.
Major Jason Markzon: So we'll sustain that for a while.
Destin: 180? That's 6 to 7 G's for how long?
Major Jason Markzon: 180 degrees of turn. So we'll sustain that for-- that's probably about 20 seconds or so.
Destin: What? OK. I'm going to level with you about what I was thinking at this point in the game. We're sitting there talking about all the stuff that's going to happen, and I'm thinking, you know what? I can do this. I ran a half marathon. I can carry all the groceries in the house at this-- in one go, one trip I can get all the groceries. And if worse comes to worse, I'm just going to lay there, and I'm just going to receive the Gs, and I'm just going to take it. I might black out, but I'm good. I understand the math. I'm good. But I knew that I needed to fake just a little bit of humility, because I didn't want-- if something bad happened, I just wanted to be able to say, I told you you were going to get me. So I was saying stuff like this to Flack.
Major Jason Markzon: We'll do four aileron rolls in-- consecutively. And then we'll do our max turn 9 G turn.
Destin: After the aileron rolls?
Major Jason Markzon: Well, we can do it before the aileron rolls if you want.
Destin: So this is the shake and bake?
Major Jason Markzon: This is is-- yeah, this is-- that's-- this is when the true test of your mettle happens.
Destin: So what happens is you do the little stuff, and then you're like, OK, just to remind you that I'm the fighter pilot, and you're not, we're now going to do these things.
Major Jason Markzon: It's not that. It's just to show you the training and physical nature of being in the cockpit.
Destin: After the briefing, it was time for Sergeants Jasper Roberts and Ed Portan to suit me up. They measured me, fitted me for my helmet, made sure the mask fit correctly so hypoxia wouldn't be an issue, trained me on the ejection seat, and laced up my g-suit to the right size. On the way out to the flight line, I was kindly offered a pair of aviator sunglasses, which I declined, and we walked out to the jet. And to be honest, this is where it started to feel real.
Destin: You always walk to your jet in slow motion?
Major Jason Markzon: Everybody walks in slow mo-- everybody else is moving fast, but we're walking in slow motion.
Destin: That's fun. There was a lot of tradition going on at this point, and you feel really special, but your feet are planted firmly back on the ground when you have to put on the g-suit in front of everybody at the jet. If you don't know what you're doing, there's absolutely no way to look cool putting the g-suit on in front of other people. Getting in the g-suit's half the workout, man. Climbing up to the cockpit of an F-16 is absolutely surreal.
Man: Right foot, right here.
Destin: Yes, sir.
Man: Take your left hand, put it in front of your name.
Destin: You put my name on it?
Man: Oh, absolutely.
Destin: That's impressive.
Man: Sit down.
Destin: This is cool.
Man: Throw that helmet on. Look cool.
Destin: Look cool. That's going to be hard.
Major Jason Markzon: [INAUDIBLE].
Destin: Yeah. Left, right, left, right.
Major Jason Markzon: Tin can, that's my guy. That's my guy.
Destin: OK, here we go, the moment I've been waiting for. We're going to point down the runway. He's going to kick on the afterburner, which means putting fuel in the exhaust to get additional thrust. Hard bank right, shoot straight up to 16,000 feet. This is insane. It's what I imagine riding a rocket might feel like.
Major Jason Markzon: I am ready if you are ready, my friend.
Destin: I am ready, sir.
Major Jason Markzon: Let's do this. Rocket up. Smoke on. Ready now. Smoke off. Ready now. And on the roll. Here comes the afterburner. There she is. Airborne. The air is coming up. Right turn. Departure. [INAUDIBLE] eight airborne and passing 200 for 5220. [INAUDIBLE] that's eight go for departure. Radar contact. Climb and maintain. 1-6,000-- 16,000.
Destin: Getting ready to climbed to 1-6,000. And you're operating radios while doing this. That's a delight. What's your thrust to weight ratio?
Major Jason Markzon: It's about one to one.
Destin: Man. Look at you turning to avoid the sun.
Major Jason Markzon: Sure, we'll go with that.
Destin: And just like that, we're at 16,000 feet. So now that we're airborne in an F-16, we should probably learn how to read our instruments. This is the heads up display, otherwise known as the HUD.
Major Jason Markzon: If you look at the HUD, the left side, it says 351-- that's our air speed.
Destin: Yes.
Major Jason Markzon: If you go down from that, kind of down the ladder, where it says SIM, S-I-M.
Destin: Yep.
Major Jason Markzon: The number right below that is our current Mach number, so 0.70. And then below that to the left, that 1.0-- that's the current-- sorry, that's the max G that we pulled. And then on the top of that ladder is the current G that we're pulling.
Destin: So current G, 1.0.
Major Jason Markzon: Yep.
Destin: 1.3, 1.4, got it.
Major Jason Markzon: Yep. 0.69 Mach is where we're at.
Destin: Understood.
Major Jason Markzon: Cool. All right, you ready to do that g-ex that we talked about?
Destin: Yeah, let's do it. OK, here we go. The first maneuver according to the flight plan is the G awareness exercise-- two 180 degree turns, and when I feel the G's, I'm supposed to clench everything up, maintain my breathing, make sure I'm getting enough oxygen in my brain. And I'm also wearing the g-suit, which is supposed to squeeze my legs, and that should help out. Tell me when I need to start doing the maneuver.
Major Jason Markzon: Yep, so as we-- I'll say, here comes the G's. And when I say G's, that's when I'm going to start pulling. So that's when I need you--
Destin: I need my head back?
Major Jason Markzon: That's when-- you don't need your head back necessarily, but that's when you're going to want to start applying your G strain.
Destin: OK.
Major Jason Markzon: Cool. All right, man.
Destin: We don't know if my suit's working yet, by the way. We didn't dry run it.
Major Jason Markzon: Man, I'm sure it's fine. All right, here we go. Here come the G's. All right, that is it.
Destin: 4.6?
Major Jason Markzon: 4.6.
Destin: OK.
Major Jason Markzon: All right, ready? Here we go. 180 degree turn coming up. Here come the G's. All right. Destin, how you feeling? You got 6.7 there.
Destin: Good.
Major Jason Markzon: Nice, man. Yeah, that's impressive, dude. The first maneuver we did in the F-16 was already far more difficult than the most difficult maneuver we did in the T-38, which made me realize this is more than this, but it's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. Next, we went supersonic. We took the jet to mill power, which means the fastest the engine will go without the afterburner, and we went for it.
Major Jason Markzon: So you can see I'm in mill power right now.
Destin: Yeah.
Major Jason Markzon: And we're at 0.99 Machs. So as soon as I go afterburner, we're going to break the Mach.
Destin: OK, so I'm looking down here. OK.
Major Jason Markzon: You see that 0.99 Mach?
Destin: I do see that.
Major Jason Markzon: All right, ready?
Destin: Yeah.
Major Jason Markzon: Here we go. AB, here's the Mach, man. We just broke it. 1.02.
Destin: Nothing happened.
Major Jason Markzon: 1.04. 1.05. Well, so--
Destin: The altimeter went crazy.
Major Jason Markzon: I can tell you that I can feel the jet starting to climb.
Destin: Yeah.
Major Jason Markzon: And watch what happens when I go idle. Feel yourself slow down like that?
Destin: Oh, wow.
Major Jason Markzon: Yeah.
Destin: Hard.
Major Jason Markzon: Really slow down, right? So--
Destin: And the-- and the altimeter went ballistic.
Major Jason Markzon: Yeah, the altimeter went crazy, right? So that's just the-- I think that's the pressure over the Pitot tubes.
Destin: Yeah, it's the static pressure.
Major Jason Markzon: Yeah. Breaking the sound barrier in the cockpit of a high-performance jet is something I've dreamed about and studied about for years, and it finally just happened. I was expecting a shake or maybe a little rumble. Nothing happened. Other than these gauges that bumped, I wouldn't have known we went supersonic. But the reason the gauges bumped is fascinating.
Let's start with this. This is called a Pitot tube, and this is how you measure how fast a jet is going. This is essentially the pointy part of the jet. This is an old one that's kind of beat up, but if you look at the end of it, there's a little bitty hole. As a jet flies through the air, the air molecules come to the Pitot probe, and they ram inside that hole. And if you've got a pressure gauge on the back of that hole, you can measure what's called the stagnation pressure. Basically, it's how much air is stacking up, which is, of course, a function of how fast you're going.
Another thing about Pitot tubes, though, is they have a second pressure measurement, and that's on the side. If you see these holes here, that's called the static pressure ports, and they go to a different pressure tap right back here in the back. And if you take the difference of this and this, and you plug it into a fancy equation, you can calculate the airspeed of the aircraft. So if you think about it, there's two main things that influence a Pitot tube. Number one is the velocity of the aircraft. The more air that comes into that front port, the higher the stagnation pressure.
But on the static pressure port, it's mainly affected by the altitude of the aircraft. At lower sea levels, you'll have a high static pressure, but as you go up in altitude, you'll have a lower static pressure because the air is thinner at higher altitudes. When you start breaking the sound barrier, though, weird stuff happens. For example, the Prandtl-Glauert transformation says that an aircraft should experience infinite air pressures as it approaches Mach 1, which, of course, would destroy the airplane. This theory is known as the Prandtl-Glauert Singularity.
So this theoretical infinite pressure that the front of the aircraft sees due to the Prandtl-Glauert Singularity-- turns out, not a thing, which is great, because now we can go past Mach 1. What we do see, however, is a sudden increase in pressure right as we approach Mach 1. And we can see that by looking at the altimeter. You see how the altimeter reading seems to go down by 500 foot just before punching through Mach 1? That's because the pressure is increasing at the static port on the front of the aircraft, but once you punch through Mach 1, the altimeter reading goes up by 1300 foot instantly, and this has a very interesting explanation.
When an object goes faster than the speed of sound, a shockwave is created. And to take a closer look at that, let's revisit a previous episode of Smarter Every Day. We fired a supersonic bullet and used Schlieren imagery to visualize the shockwave. The pressure on the front of the shockwave is higher because the air is piling up in front of it, but the pressure behind the shockwave is what's called a rare faction, meaning it's at a lower pressure. So now compare the shape of a Pitot tube to that bullet. If we have shockwave on the front here, that means the static port is going to be behind that shockwave in that rarer faction, which means it's going to see a lower pressure. That makes the gauges on the dash read a higher altitude because a higher altitude is equated to a lower pressure, and that's why the gauges bump when you go supersonic in a jet.
I always knew that was a thing, but I never knew why, and it feels really good to finally understand the physics behind it. Another thing I thought was interesting is this is the rare opportunity to experience something firsthand that I've always heard about in my classes, and that's the fact that the speed of sound is lower at higher altitudes.
Major Jason Markzon: Yeah, so here we are. 0.99 Mach is about 390 and up. There we go. We just broke the Mach, and I haven't even touched the afterburner.
Destin: Really?
Major Jason Markzon: So this jet is technically super cruising. It's 390 knots, so it's a little bit lower than before.
Destin: On the left, at 20,000 feet, you can see that we broke Mach 1 at an air speed of 473 knots calibrated, but on the right, at a higher altitude of 29,000 feet, we broke Mach 1 at an airspeed of only 392 knots calibrated. Now, this is calibrated air speed, which is different than true air speed. And yes, we were going in different directions, and winds, and stuff like that, but the upshot is the higher the altitude, the lower the air speed required to break Mach 1.
Major Jason Markzon: I think we're a little bit more efficient at supersonic. It just depends on your throttle.
Destin: What's the G loading right now?
Major Jason Markzon: We're at 3.3 G's.
Destin: Wow. Yeah, I've lost the ability to think.
Major Jason Markzon: Oh, yeah?
Destin: Yeah.
Major Jason Markzon: That's all good.
Destin: If you're not trained for 3 G's all the time-- Flack's just up there like it's no big deal, but I'm in the back suffering. It was incredible. Anyway, so back to maneuvers. We're going to do a split-S, which is flip it over upside down, 180 back the other way. So are you going to do the other maneuvers?
Major Jason Markzon: Yeah, man. You ready?
Destin: Yeah, I am not-- I am not excited about the 9 G. I'll tell you that right now.
Major Jason Markzon: OK.
Destin: I will G-LOC.
Major Jason Markzon: Yeah, make sure you hold on to your--
Destin: GoPro.
Major Jason Markzon: Your GoPro, because we're going to do a split-S maneuver, all right?
Destin: Right now we're going a split-S?
Major Jason Markzon: Yeah.
Destin: All right.
Major Jason Markzon: All right, here come the G's.
Destin: OK, let's pause it right here, and back that up, and play. This right here is the precise moment where I stopped winning. Somehow, the beginning of that split-S caught me off guard, and the eggs began to scramble.
Major Jason Markzon: Smoke is on.
Destin: That's awful. I am awake, but barely.
Major Jason Markzon: How are you doing?
Destin: I am doing bad.
Major Jason Markzon: You're doing bad?
Destin: Well, that was-- that was amazing, and I cannot do any more than that. That was my limit.
Major Jason Markzon: Oh, yeah?
Destin: I stayed awake. What was it?
Major Jason Markzon: You got 7.2 G's on that.
Destin: At 7.2 G's, my head just felt like it weighed over 70 pounds. My vision came down to a singular point, and I no longer had the ability to think. I was getting worried about the upcoming 9 G maneuver, which is why I was happy when flight decided to let me rest with a knife edge maneuver.
Destin: You're kicking my tail.
Major Jason Markzon: All right, here we go, man. Here comes the knife edge. Smoke on ready now. And a little left bank. A little bit of rudder, and a little bit of light on the G. So you-- at this altitude, it's tough for the aerodynamics to hold on. We'll try and put a little bit more rudder in there. Yep.
So at this altitude, it's tougher to maintain its altitude? But at a lower altitude that air speed-- as fast as we're going, it'll maintain [INAUDIBLE] altitude.
Destin: I'm going to level with you. I don't even remember that conversation. I was just hanging on for dear life, but looking back at the video, knife edge flight is pretty interesting. If you think about how wings work, they have a lift vector that comes straight out of the wings, keeping you up in the air. But if you're turned like this, that lift vector doesn't really help you. So what you have to do is you have to use the body of the aircraft itself and the rudder, which is why this maneuver is performed much better down at lower altitudes closer to sea level, because the density of the air is much higher, and you can get much more lift out of your rudder.
Oh! When I edit this, I will not lie. I will tell everyone that you beat my tail.
Major Jason Markzon: My iPad actually rotated its view in that knife edge [INAUDIBLE].
Destin: Did it really?
Major Jason Markzon: You want to try the eight-point roll?
Destin: Yeah, let's do it.
Major Jason Markzon: OK, this one's a little bit lower, but it's a lot of fun. All right, smoke's on ready now, and here we go for eight-points. Don't stop. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
Destin: We did it.
Major Jason Markzon: We can do a little inverted flying if you'd like.
Destin: Sure.
Major Jason Markzon: All right, here we go. Smoke on ready now. You're just going to feel a little push.
Destin: Whoa!
Major Jason Markzon: There we go. We're inverted. Here comes a little bit of a roll.
Destin: OK, my body does not like this.
Major Jason Markzon: All right, we'll roll back out real slowly.
Destin: OK, I am tapping out.
Major Jason Markzon: All right, buddy. We'll cruise back to Gulfport. How about that?
Destin: Yeah.
Major Jason Markzon: Cool, man.
Destin: And that was it. I tapped out, and I did not think I was going to tap out. My plan was to get in the seat, and just do whatever, and just take it. But in the moment, that split-S boggled me a little bit, and I couldn't recover. My vision started coming in. Stuff was spinning. I started hitting limits I didn't know I had, and it humbled me. That kind of humility that's forced upon you-- it's different. I have to live with the fact now that I had an opportunity to do a 9 G maneuver in an F-16, and I tapped out. That's a hard thing.
To learn more about what my body was doing, let's take a look at these. These are the 3D versions of the semi-circular canals on the inside of your body. This is the gyro in your inner ear. I'm not even really sure how these go, but to learn how these work, let's go to Houston Texas to NASA's neutral buoyancy lab and speak to a physiology expert there named Sharon. She's got a really good demonstration that shows us how these things work.
Sharon: So what I want you to do-- put your hands like this.
Destin: OK.
Sharon: You can put them on your knees. It's probably easier.
Destin: OK.
Sharon: Now, when I turn you in this direction, I want you to tell us that we're going that way.
Destin: OK.
Sharon: When I turn you in this direction, that way.
Destin: OK.
Sharon: If I stop you-- because I'm going to mess with you, OK?
Destin: OK.
Sharon: All I want you to do is not look.
Destin: OK. Close my eyes?
Sharon: Close your eyes tight, and we're-- I'm just going to take you for a little ride, OK?
Destin: OK.
Sharon: I'm going to mess with you.
Destin: OK, all right. So I think I'm going in this direction. OK, I'm gone. I can't tell what I'm doing anymore.
Sharon: OK, open your eyes.
Destin: Am I moving?
Sharon: Nope. Your eyeballs sure are.
Destin: Are you serious?
Sharon: I'm very serious.
Destin: Can you look in close at my eyes? My eyeballs are-- OK, they're not moving anymore.
Sharon: No, but they sure were.
Destin: Can you do it one more time?
Sharon: Sure thing.
Destin: OK. Wow.
Sharon: That's going to be enough. OK, are you ready?
Destin: Yeah.
Sharon: I'm going to stop you in 3, 2, 1. Stop. Open your eyes.
Destin: That is messed up. I got sweaty.
Sharon: I'll bet you did.
Destin: Wow, OK.
Sharon: Wow, indeed.
Destin: That's what happens.
Sharon: Yes.
Destin: So it's my ear that makes me messed up in the Air Force Thunderbirds jet.
Sharon: Yes. This is what happens. You remember those semi-circular canals I was talking to you about?
Destin: Yeah.
Sharon: There's stuff floating in there. This stuff hasn't been made in years.
Destin: Yeah.
Sharon: But if I move the glass, the fluid pretty much stays where it is because there's not enough resistance. Well, if you had some hair cells in there, when I move it back and forth, you could imagine those hair cells would be going back and forth, back and forth.
Destin: Got it.
Sharon: That's why, when you turn your head this way, you can feel that motion. Now, watch what happens when I start spinning it. Pretty soon the fluid catches up with the sides of the glass.
Destin: Got it.
Sharon: In other words, your semi-circular canals. When I stop it, the fluid keeps on going. So it's bending your hair cells in the opposite direction. So what you're relying on is what your semi-circular canals are telling you.
Now, what happened to you, when you lift your head up, whoa, all of a sudden you've got to-- the fluid starting to move in the other one, as well. It's called a Coriolis effect. It feels like you're tumbling in all different directions at once, and it's miserable.
Destin: Thank you.
Sharon: It's very miserable.
Destin: Thank you for explaining that.
Sharon: Yeah.
Destin: It explains why I wasn't able to-- that's why I tapped out with the Thunderbirds.
Sharon: Yeah, it's not pleasant.
Destin: So when my head bobbled, my vestibular system had a different axis of rotation it had to think about. Couple that with a maneuver that gets my ear fluid spinning one way and then the other, yeah. I just couldn't handle it.
Woman: I'm sorry, that was T-bird 8?
Man: [INAUDIBLE] standby one second, ma'am.
Destin: Flack flew straight and level, and I started feeling better really quickly. In fact, after exactly three minutes, I had fully recovered. Man, now I'm back.
By that time, though, Flack had to get back for air show practice, and we were already out of the airspace slated for maneuvers. We did, however, get to do something really awesome. We flew over to Mobile Bay, which was a super special thing for me because granddaddy used to take me there when I was little. The Battle of Mobile Bay is where Admiral Farragut supposedly said those famous words about torpedoes and full speed ahead, so it was really cool to fly through there in an F-16.
The return to base was a little weird for me, personally, because I knew there were maneuvers left on the table that we didn't do. It's the upside down that did it, I think.
Major Jason Markzon: Yeah, everybody's different, man. Even as we were landing, I was still second guessing my decision to tap out of that 9 G maneuver.
Man: All right, [INAUDIBLE].
Destin: He kicked my butt. I told you earlier that the limitation of the F-16 is the human pilot inside. For example, the control stick barely moves. What you're seeing right now is not even a quarter of an inch of movement on the stick, but that is a 6 G pull you're watching, and that was enough to totally own me.
With that in mind, I'd like to introduce you to one of the most impressive people I've ever met. Her name is Major Michelle Curran, call sign Mace. She's who the Air Force has selected to do some of the most difficult maneuvers performed by the Thunderbirds, and let me tell you, I felt some of these maneuvers, and it's hard to overstate how difficult they are. What strikes me while talking to Mace is how remarkably modest she is. Just listening to her talk, you'll be like, oh, well, what she's doing clearly isn't at the edge of human capability, but it totally is. But what really strikes me about Mace is how incredibly humble she is.
This is Thunderbird 6. This is Mace.
Mace: Mace, I don't know exactly how the show goes down. So there's eight birds?
Major Michelle Curran: There's six that are actually in the demonstration. So we kind of refer to them as the diamond, which is 1 through 4, and then the solos, which is 5, and then I am the opposing solo. So we come together, all six, in close formation. We call that the delta at the end of the show, but the first part of the show, you see four jets together in really close formation-- three loops, and rolls, and all kinds of things like that. And then you have 5 and I, who are doing opposing passes, max performing the aircraft. I'll pull 9 G's. I'll do vertical rolls where I go from 200 feet over the ground up to 15,000 feet in just a few seconds.
So we're kind of the shock and awe, and really showing you what the F-16 can do.
Destin: I just flew, and I did 7.2 G's, and I could not think. And I'm told you do 9 G's in the show.
Major Michelle Curran: Yeah, so it's an acquired tolerance, right?
Destin: Is it, really?
Major Michelle Curran: I think 7 is a comfortable spot to be. Like, it's OK. But from 7 to 9, it's substantially worse feeling, but we train for that, right? We fly for four months over the winter, learning our profiles, getting used to pulling G's. We'll fly twice a day, so you actually build up a tolerance. If I haven't flown for a few weeks, it's a little bit harder to come back to the pulling G's than when I'm doing it all the time. We wear the g-suit, like you wore today. Squeezes the life back into you.
Destin: Yeah, but still I could not think at all. My brain just quit working, and you-- you're not only. You're talking on the radio, and you're doing coordinated timing maneuvers, and all of that.
Major Michelle Curran: Yeah, so I have parameters I have to hit. Not talking on the radio under 9, just because-- you felt it-- the air is being crushed out of your lungs at that point, and we have specific breathing techniques to do, exchanging that air to keep the pressure in your lungs during 9 G's. But I am flying 200 feet over the ground, doing a max turn, and then when I roll out of that, and I go into my half Cuban, which is where you pull up and over the top, I'll pull about 8 going uphill for that, so.
Destin: You're doing 9 G's at 200 feet off the deck?
Major Michelle Curran: Mhm.
Destin: Are you serious?
Major Michelle Curran: Yes.
Destin: So what is the angle of bank for that? Because--
Major Michelle Curran: It's almost 90.
Destin: Is it, really? So how are you feathering that?
Major Michelle Curran: So we have a flight path marker in our heads-up display, our HUD. And so you really just put that on the horizon line, and as long as I'm keeping that on there, and I get a solid pull, it'll hold a level turn without a lot of climbing and descending.
Destin: That sounds like she's just saying words, but that's super human stuff.
Major Michelle Curran: We practice a lot.
Destin: It's like superhero stuff. That's amazing. Thank you so much.
Major Michelle Curran: Yeah, absolutely.
Destin: Yeah, 9 G's. That is impressive.
Major Michelle Curran: 7.5.
Destin: Whatever. 7.2. I couldn't do 7.5.
Major Michelle Curran: I was like--
Destin: Thank you.
Major Michelle Curran: Yeah, of course.
Destin: I don't know if you really caught what Mace said there. She's pulling 9 G's, almost 90 degrees, and she's 200 foot off the deck. If you're going hundreds of miles an hour, it takes no time at all to go 200 feet. There is no margin for error here.
This is what I learned flying with the Air Force Thunderbirds. Sometimes in life I get overconfident, and I'm probably not the only one that does this, but maybe I'm overconfident because of something I've learned in a book, or overconfident because of a life experience I've already had that's similar to this one, or maybe even because of a past success I had.
Here's where I'm at right now, though. If I don't approach each new experience with an appropriate balance between confidence and humility, there's a good chance I'm going to be humbled by force. So moving forward, whether it's a physical challenge or a discussion with a friend, I'm going to try to maintain that balance between confidence and humility, so I don't end up looking stupid, which can happen, sometimes in front of a lot of people on the internet.
Teaching people how to maintain this balance between confidence and humility-- that's what the Air Force does. If you talk to any of these pilots, they'll say there's no room for error. We constantly have to remain humble and be practicing to improve the ability to operate an aircraft safely. But there's another thing the United States Air Force does. They take people who might not think they can do incredible things, and show them that they can.
That was amazing. If you are interested in the Air Force, I will leave links down in the video description. This was an opportunity of a lifetime. So big thanks to the Thunderbirds. Thanks to all the ground crew getting the aircraft ready for Flack for taking me up. It was amazing. So check that out. Links down in the video description. Go check them out. Thanks. Bye.
You'll notice there's no sponsor on this video, so big thanks to all the patrons that support at Patreon.com/SmarterEveryDay. I hope this video earned your subscription. If not, that's no big deal. I'm Destin. You're getting smarter every day. Have a good one. Bye.
Major Jason Markzon: If you want, I can let you fly for a little bit.
Destin: Yeah.
Major Jason Markzon: Cool. All right, man, you have the aircraft.
Destin: There's no input whatsoever.
Major Jason Markzon: Yea. Aileron rolls, left turn, right turn. You can pull some G's if you want.
Destin: OK. I'm going to do a roll.
Major Jason Markzon: Yeah, do it, man.