David Fravor: UFOs, Aliens, Fighter Jets, and Aerospace Engineering | Lex Fridman Podcast #122

Lex Fridman 0:00 The following is a conversation with Commander David Fravor, who was a Navy pilot for 18 years and commander of the Strike Fighter Squadron 41, also known as the Black Aces, a squadron of 12 airplanes consisting of several hundred people. He's also famously one of the people who, with his own eyes, saw and chased a UFO, an unidentified flying object, in 2004 that is referred to as the Tic Tac and the incident more formally referred to as the USS Nimitz UFO incident. His story, corroborated by several other pilots, from my perspective as a curious scientist and an open-minded human being, is the most credible sighting of a UFO in history, at least that I'm aware of. He's a humble, fascinating, and fun human being to talk to. I put out a call for questions on Reddit and many other places and tried to ask as many of the questions that people posted as I could. And overall, I really enjoyed this conversation, and I'm sure if the world wants us to and if there's more questions to be had, we'll talk on this podcast again. Quick summary of the sponsors: Athletic Greens, ExpressVPN, and BetterHelp. Please check out the sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that the world of UFOs and UAPs, unidentified aerial phenomena, and aliens in general is foreign (laughs) to me because of the high ratio of outlandish conspiracy theorists to actual hard evidence. I'm a scientist first and foremost but an open-minded one, often looking and thinking outside the box. I'm often disheartened by the closed-mindedness of the scientific community and, in equal part, I'm disheartened by the lack of rigor and basic scientific inquiry and study on the part of the conspiracy theorists. I believe there's a line somewhere between the two extremes that more inquisitive minds should walk. I think we humans know very little about our world, what's up there among the stars, and the nature of reality and the nature of our very own minds. The path to understanding can only be walked humbly. The very idea that there's a possibility that David witnessed a piece of technology, whether human-made or alien-made, that moved in the way it did should be inspiring to every scientist and engineer on this earth. There may be propulsion and energy systems yet to be discovered that, once understood and mastered, will put distant galaxies within reach of us human beings. Paradigm shifts in science and leaps in understanding can only happen, I think, if we open our eyes and allow ourselves to dream, to think from first principles, and remove the constraints on innovation placed on us by the scientific conventions and assumptions of prior generations. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter @lexfridman. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and no ads in the middle. More and more, I'm trying to make these ad reads unique and interesting and less adsy, more personal, but I give you timestamps so you can skip. But still please do check out the sponsors by clicking the links in the description. It is honestly the best way to support this podcast. This show is brought to you by Athletic Greens, the all-in-one daily drink to support health and performance. I drink it every day to make sure I'm not missing any of the nutrition I need. Now, let me take a hard left turn and talk about fasting. I fast often, sometimes intermittent fasting of 16 hours and then an eight-hour eating period of two meals, sometimes 24 hours, that's one dinner to the next. I've been even considering doing a 48 or 72-hour fast that some people I look up to have done. People who have done it tell me that outside of weight loss and the different health benefits, it's a chance to meditate on the finiteness of life. Not eating somehow is a reminder that we're mortal, that every day is precious. I certainly experienced this with the 24-hour fast, and I think it goes even deeper for the 48, 72, and even week-long fasts. Anyway, I always break my fast with Athletic Greens. It's delicious, refreshing, just makes me feel good. So go to athleticgreens.com/lex to claim a special offer of free vitamin D for a year. Again, go to, uh, athleticgreens.com/lex to get free stuff and to support this podcast. This show is also sponsored by ExpressVPN. Get it at expressvpn.com/lexpod to get a discount. You probably know there's a show called The Office that I fell in love with, first with the British version with Ricky Gervais and then the American version with Steve Carell. ExpressVPN lets you pretend your location is somewhere else, choosing from nearly 100 different countries and then watch one of the nine totally different other versions of The Office in other countries. Also, it protects you when you do shady things on the internet that you shouldn't be doing, like checking the website of this very podcast that, for some reason, was not available in Russia for a long time. I'm not sure if it still is. But if it isn't, you can use ExpressVPN to access it. I think of ExpressVPN like a pirate ship and regular VPN-free life as a boring cruise from one place to another with no excitement in between. Choose wisely, my friends. Again, get it on any device at expressvpn.com/lexpod to get an extra three months free and to support this podcast. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp, spelled H-E-L-P, help, like you would try to spell if you were on a deserted island and trying to get an airplane to notice you.Check it out at betterhelp.com/lex. They figure out what you need and match you with a licensed professional therapist in under 48 hours. You can communicate by text anytime and schedule weekly audio and video sessions. Now, hard left turn, let me talk about desert islands. Whatever you think of it, I love the movie Cast Away with Tom Hanks and the idea of spending time on an island alone with potentially no hope. The natural question is, if I could, what would I bring to this island? The answer's complicated, but let me pick one thing, the first thing (laughs) that popped into my crazy mind, which is the Introduction to Algorithms book, also called CLRS for the first letters of the last name of its four authors. I find algorithms beautiful, like a little toolbox for a simple world inside computers when the real world outside is an impossible, chaotic mess. I would love pondering the puzzles in that book for months, far away from human civilization. Anyway, check out BetterHelp at betterhelp.com/lex to get a discount and to support this podcast. And now, finally, here's my conversation with David Fravor.

Lex Fridman 7:13 You're a graduate of the Navy Fighter Weapons School.

David Fravor 7:18 Yeah, I am.

Lex Fridman 7:18 Better known as TOPGUN.

David Fravor 7:20 (laughs) Yeah.

Lex Fridman 7:21 So, let me, let me ask the most ridiculous question. How, uh, realistic is the movie TOPGUN?

David Fravor 7:26 So it's funny, we used to joke, and-and a friend of mine who was a TOPGUN instructor, uh, said this. There's two things in the, in the original TOPGUN that are true, that are very realistic. One, there is a place called Top Gun.

Lex Fridman 7:39 (laughs)

David Fravor 7:39 And number two is, they do fly airplanes there. Uh-

Lex Fridman 7:42 (laughs)

David Fravor 7:43 ... other than that, uh, you know, I went through in '97, uh, class 497. And there's actually a log of every single person that's went through, kind of like, uh, SEAL training. You know, there's a list. So people... 'cause there's a lot of posers out there, "Oh, I was a Navy SEAL." No, you weren't. Well, I went to TOPGUN. You can actually go to TOPGUN and... Matter of fact, j- just to get a TOPGUN patch, the real patch, uh, you have to have gone there. So a lot of the patches you see, uh, running around are not real. There's... The real ones are controlled. The people that make 'em, uh, honor that. And when you go in, they look up your name. If you want to get one, they look up your name. You just tell 'em, they go, "Okay, here," and they'll sell 'em to you. If you were not on the list, you ain't getting no patch. Um, because it is, it's- it's- it's a pretty big deal, uh, to go through.

Lex Fridman 8:27 Yeah, it's no excuse.

David Fravor 8:27 But it's, for me, uh, probably one of the best experiences of flying, uh, because everyone there is extremely competent. It's- it's very, very challenging, um, but it's what we all signed up to do. So it's, uh, th- it's just the entire group that is... When you want to be that, you know, that level, uh, you know, where you go, everyone really cares and everyone really wants to be good.

Lex Fridman 8:53 Is it competitive like a w- as in, in the movie or is it...

David Fravor 8:56 No, it's... Uh, when you go through, it's, you know, it's (laughs) ... If anything, it's more of the students, you know, and then there's the instructor side. And the instructor sides are really, you know, they're guys that you know. They just chose to stay up in Fallon. And it's extremely, uh, difficult job, uh, because they have, they have a very small tolerance for, um, not being good. Uh, so their briefs, the guys, when they give a lecture, so let's just say there's a fighter employment lecture, which is one of the hardest ones. It takes about two days to give the fighter employment lecture. Um, the guy who gives the lecture goes through multiple what they call them murder boards where he's scrutinized by his peers and he practices. By the time they actually stand in front of a class, they pretty much have their 250 PowerPoint slides memorized and they don't even turn around. They just click and they know them in order.

Lex Fridman 9:46 Wow.

David Fravor 9:46 And they repeat the same thing over. It's... And it's standardized. So they are extremely, extremely standardized when you go through the school and there's a reason for that, because what they're doing is they're training... So when you come out of TOPGUN, you're called a strike fighter weapons and tactics instructor. Okay? So you're SFTI. Um, when you come out of that, your job is to go usually to one of the weapons schools on the East or West Coast and train the fleet squadrons and then you visit the squadrons and train and do upgrade rides and all that. So, there's a, there's a reason that they are extremely, uh, particular when you go through the course. It's... It- it is literally one of the best things and it's not, it's not a rank-based thing 'cause think, oh, Navy. You can come in as a, you know, like a, an O-4 lieutenant commander. The lieutenants, the hierarchy, or at least it be, I don't know how it is exactly today but I imagine it's the same. The hierarchy is actually based on seniority at the school, not necessarily rank. So when the dis- the tactical decisions are made which are based on fact and- and trying things out in the Fallon ranges, uh, they set this, the top X number of folks that have been there seniority-wise, as in, I mean time-wise, uh, are the ones that actually make the decision. And when the door... You may not agree, but when the door opens and everyone comes out, uh, from the staff, they all speak the same language. It's... And it has to be that way, which is why the school has been so effective since it was founded. So it's just a... It's an incredible group of individuals.

Lex Fridman 11:14 So, th- there's a bar of excellence that, uh, that the instructors demand?

David Fravor 11:20 Oh, very much so and they're held to it. So it's not a, "Hey, I'm now an instructor so I can do what I want." It... There is a standard and they have to live up to that standard. They have to... And I mean every moment of every day. Uh, so if they go someplace, if they go from Fallon and they come down and do, they're called site visits where they come down and they'll come to Lemoore, California which is where the West Coast Fighter Wing is at for the Navy, and they go around and start flying sorties with the fleet squadrons, um, to kind of pass on some of that knowledge, that's- that same high level of standard. It's... They can't just drop your guard because you wear the TOPGUN patch and people know that. And they wear light blue shirts, so it's pretty easy to identify them when they're out there and, uh, you know, and then everyone else who's been through the school including them have the patch on their sleeve, so there's a standard that's expected when you come out

David Fravor 12:06 of there.

Lex Fridman 12:07 So, you were a Navy pilot for 18 years.

David Fravor 12:09 Yes.

Lex Fridman 12:11 Can you briefly tell the story of your career as a pilot?

David Fravor 12:15 Yeah. Um.

Lex Fridman 12:16 (laughs)

David Fravor 12:16 So, you know, first I was in- I was enlisted, I was a Marine. Um, and then, uh, the Marines actually sent me, uh, recommended me to go to the Naval Academy. Uh, so it's always better to be lucky than good. But I got to go to the Naval Academy, and I, I finished. And I've had that dream to fly, so when I got selected-

Lex Fridman 12:34 So you've always dreamed of flying?

David Fravor 12:36 Yeah. Uh, since 1969 when I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Um, I was, at that point I asked my mom, I remember watching it, I was f- um, I was just prior to being five. And I said, "Oh, that is so cool, Mom." And she said, "Well, you know, they were all pilots." And, uh, and, and at that point it was like, "I'm gonna be a pilot." And if you knew me growing up, 'cause I was a little bit of a delinquent, um-

Lex Fridman 12:59 (laughs)

David Fravor 13:00 ... people are just like, "Yeah, right. Uh-huh." And I used to joke, "I'm gonna fly, I'm gonna fly jets and I'm gonna drop bombs." Then, and if you, people that knew me-

Lex Fridman 13:08 If you'd have always said that-

David Fravor 13:08 ... when I was a kid, they would be like, yeah, and they'd be like, "Uh, not a chance." And then when I did, I actually had a, a (laughs) , this is a funny story and I'll get to it 'cause I'll, I'll finish my career. But I was at my cousin's wedding in, uh, we all grew up in the same neighborhood, uh, but we kinda, th- that Italian side of the family, that's how we grew up. So it was my house, right down the street was my cousin Chad, and then right around the corner was my cousin Ray, and my aunts and uncles and stuff. The guy two doors down from me, and I was a paper boy in the neighborhood, so they all knew me. And, uh, I went to my cousin's wedding and he, and, and Mr. Race looks at me and he says, "David Fravor." I go, "Mr. Race, how you doing?" He goes, "You fly jets. Top Gun and all that." I go, "Yes, sir." He goes, "Man, I figured you'd be in jail by now."

Lex Fridman 13:49 (laughs)

David Fravor 13:50 Um.

Lex Fridman 13:50 (laughs)

David Fravor 13:50 And it was kind of a, to me it was a little bit of a badge of honor going-

Lex Fridman 13:53 Yeah.

David Fravor 13:53 ... on, you know, I kinda overcame that. But, uh...

Lex Fridman 13:55 What do you attribute that to? So you, I've, I've heard you before and just now say that, uh, it's better to be, it's better to be lucky than good. And you, you talk modestly about, uh, (laughs) about just being lucky. But, uh, if you were to describe your trajectory, maybe in a way of advice, like, retrospectively, uh, how, how d'you pull it off? To be like, to be, uh, truly a special person?

David Fravor 14:23 The easiest way is one n- never, never take no. Don't let anyone put you down and say you can't do it, or those, I mean, I knew, I knew what I was capable of inside. You know? And if I really believe if you want something and you want to do something, then you, you can achieve it. Not in all cases, like, if I loved basketball and I really wanted to be in the NBA, there's a realism that says I'm five foot eight and I got, like, a really short vertical leap and I'm really not that good at basketball, it's probably not ever gonna happen, no matter how hard I try in practice. It's just the way it is. Or, for me to be in the NFL, I'm not fast, you know, I'm not that big. It's just physically I'm incapable of doing that. Um, but there's things that don't really tie to, uh, a true physical ability as far as size and strength, but it's, it's mental, uh, and I'm not saying you have to be a genius and super smart to be a fighter pilot. Matter of fact, you don't. It really comes down to the ability to think very quickly. Uh, 80% solution is typically good enough, 'cause if you overthink it, you're, you're behind. Uh, and then in, in an air-to-air fight, that's what happens. People try and overthink it, and before you know it, because it's happening so fast, you, you don't have, you can't get to the nth degree, you know, six decimal places. 80% solution's good enough.

Lex Fridman 15:38 You build up a really strong gut for the 80% solution, just-

David Fravor 15:40 Yeah, I'm a big believer in the 80% solution.

Lex Fridman 15:42 I love that.

David Fravor 15:43 If you get 80%-

Lex Fridman 15:44 So profound. (laughs)

David Fravor 15:44 ... you can go, and then you can always adjust.

Lex Fridman 15:47 Yeah.

David Fravor 15:47 Which is exactly what, like, if you're fighting in BFM, the 80% solution is it's like a chess game, but it's a really, really fast chess game where you go, "I'm doing this, and then I know that if I do a maneuver, if he's gonna counter it correctly, he should do A. If he doesn't do A, he does some degree less, like B, C, D, and then I know how bad his, his error is, and then I capitalize." So my mind, I don't have to be perfect, you know, I don't have to go, "I need to go to 47 degrees nose high." If I just kinda get above 40, then I'm good and I can watch how he reacts and then I can adjust for that. And, and you, and you continually work that problem and you chip away. 'Cause if you start neutral, you're just basically chipping away and gaining advantage, advantage, advantage, till eventually, you know, and if you're really f- you know, fighting, you know, just guns only, rear quarter, where you gotta get behind the guy, kind of World War II dog fighting type stuff.

Lex Fridman 16:36 Mm-hmm.

David Fravor 16:36 Um, then it's, it's literally, it's a, it's a very, very fast chess game that happens at, you know, 400 knots, 300 knots, depends, so.

Lex Fridman 16:46 So, to get to be one of the rare individuals that, uh, are able to do that, you just had the dream and didn't take no for an answer. (laughs)

David Fravor 16:57 Yeah, well, you know, uh, uh, you know, part of it is family, you know. Uh, my dad was, uh, I used to call him a fire ready aim guy. (laughs) You know, he'd, he'd smack me and then ask me what I did wrong.

Lex Fridman 17:07 Yeah.

David Fravor 17:07 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 17:08 Good parenting.

David Fravor 17:09 Um, eh, back then, you know, I, I joke and, and people look, 'cause, you know, at times it was kinda tough, you know, 'cause he could be pretty demanding. But on the other side, you know, I probably needed to be reined in a little bit at times. Uh, but then everyone else in my family, you know, my mom was really awesome when I was a kid, uh, my, uh, my grandfather who is a, a big, big part of it, my mom's dad, uh, who he taught me a lot and we- you have a question there that we'll talk about, uh, about him. But, uh, huge, huge influence. Very, very positive. And a lot of the stuff that I do today and decisions are based on things that he taught me. Um, and, uh, you know, and I figured, you know, it was the first funeral I ever went to, and it was, uh, it was about three miles long and church was overfilling and people were out. He was a beer delivery guy.

Lex Fridman 17:59 (laughs)

David Fravor 17:59 Dead serious. And you go, there's someone ask, "Who died? The Pope?"

Lex Fridman 18:02 (laughs)

David Fravor 18:02 Um, uh, so...

Lex Fridman 18:04 Uh-huh. So a lot of people loved him.

David Fravor 18:05 So back to, back to my career-

Lex Fridman 18:07 Yeah, let's go.

David Fravor 18:07 ... to your first question, 'cause I- I'm getting down a rabbit hole. Uh, no, I, uh, when I was at the ... I was gonna, I was gonna stay in the Marines. I, I really wanted to go. Man, I love the Corps. I think it's, uh...... of all services, it's that one, everything is in a ball. And they're very, very professional, and it was a great, great organization to join. Uh, but I went out to the Nimitz on my, uh, freshman cruise. After your freshman year at the Naval Academy, you go out on a ship and you, you're an enlisted person. You get to experience that. But I already was enlisted, so it was fine with me.

Lex Fridman 18:36 Because it comes up a lot, you mind saying what the Nimitz is, what a ship is, what like a-

David Fravor 18:41 So, like, yeah. So Nimitz is, uh, an aircraft carrier. So it's, uh, four and a half acres of sovereign US territory (laughs) that floats around the US oceans. Or the-

Lex Fridman 18:48 This is a giant thing? Does it have weapons on it?

David Fravor 18:51 Uh, the air wing is really the weapons. It does have defensive weapons, but for the most part, it's a giant moving airport, is what it is. So, I was out there watching the airplanes land and take off, um, and I'm like, "Ooh." And the squadrons that were out there, one of the squadrons was VF-41, an F-14 squadron, VF-84, uh, an F-14 squadron, and then a couple of A-6 squadrons. And we actually ended up par- pairing up and hanging out with some of the A-6 pilots and BNs, so it was really a neat experience. And I said, "I want to do that."

Lex Fridman 19:20 Yeah.

David Fravor 19:20 And the way to do it was to not... To, to go in the Navy, because there are Marine squadrons that go out to the aircraft carriers, but most of them are land-based, you know, to support the Marines, 'cause they're that, that unit, that whole unit. And you know, the Marine Corps is that one service that has it all. And, uh, so when I graduated and I got to, uh, you know, I, I worked hard through primary, and that's where, you know, I knew Missy.

Lex Fridman 19:43 Mm-hmm.

David Fravor 19:44 Uh, we were in the t-... Actually went through together.

Lex Fridman 19:45 Missy Cummings.

David Fravor 19:46 Missy Cummings. Uh, we went through primary together and then, uh, I went to Kingsville. We all selected the same time. I went to Kingsville. There was another guy, Scott Wedemeyer, uh, the three of us.

Lex Fridman 19:55 Hm.

David Fravor 19:55 So I went to Kingsville, Scott went to Beeville, and Missy went to Meridian. So the three of us that we had all went through, we got s-... We selected out of primary together. We all ended up going jets. And that's, that's how I... Uh, besides from school. I knew her at school too. Long story, I got done, uh, got winged. It took me two years to the day from the time I graduated the Naval Academy until I got my wings. And, uh, through some luck, uh, I ended up getting A-6s, uh, on the West Coast, which is a side-by-side, uh, bomber. So it's a pilot on the left seat and the bombardier navigator's on the right seat. It was built in the '60s. It is all-weather, uh, and it flies low at night. It's got a terrain-mapping radar.

Lex Fridman 20:33 How many... I, I guess, i- is, was that a good term to use, fighter jets as a broad category for, for the public?

David Fravor 20:39 Yeah, that's fine.

Lex Fridman 20:40 H- how many fighter jets are side by side like that?

David Fravor 20:43 That was, uh, in the Navy, that was the only one. Uh, the Air Force, the F-111 was a side by side, but the Navy, it was the A-6. And then there's the EA-6B, which is a derivative of that, and now that those are all gone. The EA-6Bs just went away a few years ago, and now the, uh, E-18G Growler, um, is the replacement for the EA-6B. There was never a replacement for the A-6, uh, that I flew. Uh, it really became the F-18, which, uh, the A-6 could go quite a bit, uh, further distance-wise by fuel, uh, than the Hornet. And, uh, so the F-18.

Lex Fridman 21:14 The Hornet is the F-18.

David Fravor 21:15 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 21:16 Is there usually two people in the plane, but they're usually, like, in front and behind?

David Fravor 21:21 In a, the modern two-seaters, yes.

Lex Fridman 21:22 Oh.

David Fravor 21:23 Uh, but most of the tactical airplanes in the world today are single seat.

Lex Fridman 21:26 Single seat's just one person?

David Fravor 21:27 One person, with the exception of... I'll probably... Someone will yell at me, but re- really with the exception of the F-15E Strike Eagle and the F-18F Super Hornet, which is... The F is a two-seater and the G is also two-seater, but it's more of an electronic attack by say, full up fighter bomber.

Lex Fridman 21:44 So, most of the time that you've flown in your, in th-... Like I said, 18-year career, is... Was it two-seater?

David Fravor 21:51 That was about half and half.

Lex Fridman 21:53 Okay.

David Fravor 21:53 So I started off and A-6 was a two-seater. Then I went to single seat F-18s, and I flew those, uh, all the way up until 2000 and... Let me think, 2001. To the end of 2001. And then I shifted over and started flying the Super Hornets, and I've flown both of those, the Es and the Fs. But I deployed when I had command of VFA-41, I had the two seat. They, they were F squadron.

Lex Fridman 22:18 So you eventually ended up commanding the, the Strike Fighter Squadron 41. (laughs) I love the, the name, the Black Aces. What, uh... Is there some parts of that journey that are amazing, parts of it that are tough, that kind of stand out?

David Fravor 22:37 To me, it was... One, it was a huge honor. Uh, and I got to serve with, uh... You know, I got pulled up because the, the guy who... The, the people that are XOs... 'Cause we fleet up, you go from the number two guy to the number one guy. So the XO becomes the CO. So the executive officer becomes the commanding officer. So I had worked with, uh, now S- uh, soon to be Vice Admiral, Whitsell, uh, was the... He was Commander. Whitsell at the time was the XO, and he really wanted... Because he knew... There's a little bit of a, a problem when the Super Hornets came into Lemoore. Lemoore had been a single seat, uh, fighter community, uh, since the forever. And now all of a sudden, you've got the F-18F coming in, which has the weapon systems operators in the back, that are not pilots, they're weapon systems operators. And there's a, and there's a difference. Um, and Kenny is a weapon systems operator. And, uh, Kenny knew because of my A-6 background that I have a switch that I can go one seat, two seat, one seat, two seat. Because when you fly two seat, there's a lot of stuff that the pilot will offload and take the advantage of, the weapon systems operator. And it's not that one plus one equals two in that environment, 'cause it really... There's a huge amount of capabilities that the single seat has and the autonomy that comes for the ability to make decisions quickly and how well the airplane flies. But it does, it does equal more than one. And I would say, that one plus one with two people is well... Is a minimum of 1.5, because you've got an extra head, you've got extra eyes, you've got someone that can monitor systems. The airplanes can do two things at once. I mean, there's an incredible amount of capability that we add when we do that.

Lex Fridman 24:14 Could we just pause on that?

David Fravor 24:15 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 24:16 Just for me, from a, like, a human factors perspective, and also an AI perspective, what's...... how difficult, uh... So there's like, when there's two people, there's also a third person that's the AI part,, the sum level of automation, like autopilot maybe even.

David Fravor 24:33 That's correct.

Lex Fridman 24:34 Maybe you can kind of talk about the psychology of like, you said making decisions really quick, 80%. How do you deal with another brain working with you, and then also the automation? Is there an interesting interplay that you get to learn? And also has that changed throughout your career? I imagine it got- it gotten better in terms of the automation, or perhaps not.

David Fravor 24:59 Well, I can tell you... So there, let, let's-

Lex Fridman 25:01 Sorry, there's a bunch of questions now.

David Fravor 25:01 Let's start... No, this is, this is good, this is good, and this is... You know, I'm, I'm enjoying this because now we actually get to talk about something other than a Tic Tac, so.

Lex Fridman 25:08 (laughs)

David Fravor 25:08 Um, so let's start with the A-6. The A-6 was really an analog airplane-

Lex Fridman 25:12 Yeah.

David Fravor 25:13 ... uh, that was built in the '60s, all right? And there's been studies done on the crew coordination, which is the interaction between the pilot and the bombardier navigator. So we would fly low at night in the mountains. So the, I was stationed up in Whidbey Island, Washington, so you've got the Cascades and incredible, uh, amount of time, and we would get in the simulators because unlike... Normally, people think terrain following and there's, the radars, the 111, the B1 has a system like this, but it'll... The radar can see and it'll fly, basically flies a straight line, so it goes up and over mountains and back down and up and over mountains, where the A-6 was really manual. So you do this low level routes where you're gonna f- you're gonna fly in the mountains at night. You're gonna be at, you know, 500 to 1,000 feet above the ground, ripping through like fog layers 'cause you don't need to see outside. You're, you're literally flying-

Lex Fridman 26:01 Oh, so it's-

David Fravor 26:01 ... a little TV screen and a radar.

Lex Fridman 26:02 ... I guess, what are you looking at most of the time? So it's just at a screen?

David Fravor 26:05 It's this really primitive (laughs) ... If you look at it now, what we did, you'd think, "Wow, that was crazy," but it was really fun, so.

Lex Fridman 26:12 Is it similar to like the flare stuff? Is that, is-

David Fravor 26:14 No.

Lex Fridman 26:15 ... are you... And so this-

David Fravor 26:16 It's, this thing is totally radar based. Now the airplane had a flare ball, it's, uh, target recognition and multi-sensor. It was called a TRAM. Um, you can-

Lex Fridman 26:23 So you're looking at like basically like dots of hard objects you're trying to avoid?

David Fravor 26:27 No, actually what it is is the, the bombardier navigator had a radar and he was getting raw feed off of a pulse radar in front, okay? So it's just basically mapping the mountains. So if you look at a mountain on a radar and you're coming up on it, the front side is gonna be, it's gonna give you a really bright return, and then the back side, it's just going to be a giant shadow because you can't-

Lex Fridman 26:45 Mm-hmm.

David Fravor 26:45 ... see on the other side. So the bombardier navigators would do that and we, they would have charts and they could shade their charts knowing that, hey, if we turn a little bit left here, we can get in this valley, we can sneak up this valley and then go around the back side of the mountain, which is what the airplane would do.

Lex Fridman 26:59 And it, so, and sorry to interrupt. Um, I'm gonna just keep asking dumb questions, I apologize. But the pilot, can you, can you at a high level say what the pilot does versus the bombard- uh, bombardier, uh-

David Fravor 27:10 Yeah, so-

Lex Fridman 27:11 You're, you're actually just control?

David Fravor 27:13 I'm, I'm flying the jet. I have the throttles, the stick-

Lex Fridman 27:15 Like literally.

David Fravor 27:15 ... and I have a, uh, it's about a, probably a 4-inch or 6-inch wide by maybe 4", 5" high. It looks like... It's literally a CRT, that's how old it is.

Lex Fridman 27:28 (laughs)

David Fravor 27:28 A CRT screen, and what it would do, what the radar would do is the, the po- the bombardier navigator is looking at his radar and he's looking out about 12 and a half miles in front of the airplane, so he has the range really scoped out 'cause the radar can see a lot further. He's looking at about 12 and a half miles when we're in the terrain mode, where we're dodging mountains and stuff. And what the pilot has is there's, they're called range bins and there's eight of them. So the very far range bin is the 12 and a half mile, you know, and the closest range bin, it's a thing and it'll be like between like a half a mile and, or a quarter mile to three quarters of a mile, and the next one might be three quarters of a mile to two miles, and then it just keeps going out like that. So if there's a mountain in front, let's say we're on a flat plain and there's a mountain out in the distance at 15 miles and we- we're just driving right at it. So when we get to the point where it hits 12 and a half miles where the radar is going to see it on his scope, my 12, my range bin for that would pop up and it would show like a big bump, like a mountain.

Lex Fridman 28:24 Mm-hmm.

David Fravor 28:25 And then as I got closer to it, the next range bin would pop up and show it.

Lex Fridman 28:29 Mm-hmm.

David Fravor 28:29 And I could see that that bump was moving towards me, and then if I turned a little bit, you know, to go over here, I'd see the mountain go over to the right-hand side and I could do that. But it wasn't like a, a video game. It was, it's literally like, uh, if you think of the original Ataris.

Lex Fridman 28:44 Yeah. But you build up, I imagine, that you start to get, uh, a really deep sense of like the actual three- 3D environment based on that little Atari-style display.

David Fravor 28:56 It's, you're exactly right, and you have to, you have to train. So there's been studies, a matter of fact, a lot of the bases, and people will probably argue with me but it's true, there were studies done watching A-6 crews in our simulators. We called it the WIST, the Weapon Systems Trainer, and it was not even a motion, it just kind of sat there and you'd just, you could fly these things and they had terrain that it would inject into the system. Uh, but the crew coordination, so you get... So my first, uh, my first fleet bombardier navigator who, who's, uh, I'll, I'll name him, his name's Chris Sado, uh, he's a, works at Apple, uh, pretty high up. MIT grad.

Lex Fridman 29:32 Awesome.

David Fravor 29:32 Uh, I think computer engineering, uh, th- he's scary smart. So Chris could really work, as a matter of fact all the guys I flew with, so there's another guy, Matt, who also worked at Apple who's now at SAP, we did our first night traps together. The bond between us, I mean, it's one of those things that you just, you're, you're never for- gonna forget, but Chris and I, when we started flying together, and we were actually the most junior crew in the squadron, uh, we'd spent a lot of time training and, and, and Chris was amazing at how he could work the system, uh, one, because he was ex- extremely brilliant and he was, had that inquisitive mind of, "Oh, we can do all these different things and there's all these degradation modes." Uh, but we spent a lot of time to see how good we could actually get because... And it's, you, you almost talk in partials. So as the BN is looking at his radar scope, Chris would say, "I've got rising terrain." That's just what they'd say, "Showing rising terrain at 12 miles." And I'd see the little bump and I'd say, "Got it."This is gonna go to your question on the autonomy and how you work with two heads.

Lex Fridman 30:31 Yes.

David Fravor 30:32 So, when you first get together, the interaction it's y- y- it's, it's almost like y- y- you have to rehearse it, you have to know, and you talk in full sentences. The more and more we fly together-

Lex Fridman 30:44 (laughs)

David Fravor 30:46 ... Chris could go, "I'm showing..." And he'd get, like, rising out, and before he finished, I'd say, "I've got it." So you end up starting to talk in partials because I have to trust him, like, imme- I mean...

Lex Fridman 31:00 Yeah.

David Fravor 31:00 ... there can be no, I can have no doubt that he knows how to do his job because I'm literally looking at this little scope that's not giving me this continuous picture of that mountain moving. Remember, the mountain's here and then it's gonna pop up here, and then it's gonna pop up here because there's gaps in the coverage on how the system was set up. Remember, it's an analog system. To where he is telling me, like, I can't see all the way to the left and he h- he's got a wider scope on the radar but my screen doesn't show that. So he's telling me, "Start a left turn."

Lex Fridman 31:27 How to avoid the mountain, right?

David Fravor 31:28 Or start a hard turn, you know, and we would do that. So my truck-

Lex Fridman 31:31 And this is all happening quick?

David Fravor 31:32 Very quick. What you're doing, uh, we, we would typically fly between 420 and 480 knots of ground speed.

Lex Fridman 31:39 Which is how many miles an hour? (laughs)

David Fravor 31:40 Uh, well... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 31:41 Is that-

David Fravor 31:41 ... 420 is seven miles a minute.

Lex Fridman 31:43 Oh, okay. Seven miles a minute.

David Fravor 31:43 Or eight. It's b- between seven and eight-

Lex Fridman 31:45 Wow.

David Fravor 31:45 ... miles a minute is what you're flying.

Lex Fridman 31:46 That's fast.

David Fravor 31:47 At night. I mean, I've broke out of clouds, I mean, I remember him and I flying, we were on a s- uh, IR, it's called an IR route, uh, an instrument route that's l- low, they're all around the country. There's IR344 that we used to fly which would coast in off of, or you'd fly from the land, you go out over the ocean, turn around, and then you could practice actually coming in on a coastline. And we were flying and, uh, eh, eh, we ended up in the clouds. Y- keep in mind, we're between 500 and 1,000 feet in the mountains and we're in the clouds, like, you can't see anything. And I had to turn off our red lights that flash, you know, they're called the anti-collision lights.

Lex Fridman 32:18 Mm-hmm.

David Fravor 32:18 Because it was reflecting off the clouds and it starts to bother ya, just gets annoying. So I turned it off and we were flying, we're flying, we're flying. We break out of that coastal marine layer-

Lex Fridman 32:28 Mm-hmm.

David Fravor 32:28 ... and poof, we break out.

Lex Fridman 32:31 (laughs)

David Fravor 32:31 And it's, it's a decent night, and this is right by Mount St. Helens. This is kinda where we're coming in, so we're coming in from the east and we're just north of Mount St. Helens is where the route goes. And you look up, you know, 'cause you can kinda see the silhouette of this mountain that's right next to you, but you're flying along, you're just like, you know, you gotta trust (laughs) . And you can see houses, you can see the lights, they're above you. We're literally below people's houses flying down these valleys and stuff.

Lex Fridman 32:50 Wow.

David Fravor 32:50 So just incredible experience. So when you take that and then you move into, uh, an F-18F, so now we're into modern technology that was actually built in this century, uh, uh-

Lex Fridman 33:00 (laughs) Yeah.

David Fravor 33:01 ... and you're flying. So now, you know, the WSO is behind us, and we're not doing those night low levels, but that same type of crew coordination that has to happen because what you're doing is you're sharing the load. So most of the communications that go out of the airplane, the WSO does all the talk and he's got, actually, he uses his feet.

Lex Fridman 33:18 What's the WSO?

David Fravor 33:18 That's the weapon systems operator in the back of an F-18F. So he's gonna run, uh, well, y- the radar kinda runs itself now, but we have a situational awareness display and it's, it's linked to all the other airplanes.

Lex Fridman 33:29 Just out of curiosity, what's the situational awareness display? 'Cause that term comes up a lot in, in practice.

David Fravor 33:33 Think of it as, uh, think of it as a God's eye view. So if you have, uh, the back of the Super Hornet has, well, the Block IIs has about an eight-by-10 display for the WSOs, um, that they can look at. The pilot's is smaller, it's down between his, it's a six-by-six between his legs and they're, they're getting ready to redesign that, Boeing is. But when you looked, it'd, it'd be like if you put your airplane and you're looking down.

Lex Fridman 33:53 Mm-hmm.

David Fravor 33:53 So all the stuff, like, if your radar's seeing bad guys out in front of you, you'd be, like, looking down going, "Oh, I'm right here and now there's bad guys out here and my wingman is over here." And it shows everything. It's just like, it gives you, you can look at that display and go, "Oh-"

Lex Fridman 34:06 Okay.

David Fravor 34:06 "... I can see where everything's at." I can see if one guy's trying to target another guy. You c- it shows you all that. So it's an incredible amount of knowledge that comes up for the crews to maintain, uh, uh, the, the overall picture of what's going on because-

Lex Fridman 34:19 Yeah, the big picture sense of what's going on. Yeah.

David Fravor 34:20 ... because it's happening so fast and this is with that autonomy piece, this is the third brain. So we're all looking at it and the third brain is doing fusion, it's pulling stuff together going, "Oh, this is all this guy, this is this guy, this is this guy." It's sending it out through the links so all the airplanes are talking to each other through this digital network, you know, that we don't even see. It just says, that airplane says, "Hey, I'm over here," and it tells us and we go, "Oh, he's right there." And then we can go, oh, he's ... his airplane says, "Oh, I'm looking at this airplane, this bad guy." And it shows us, oh, he's, he's over there and he's looking at this guy. I mean, it's an incredible amount of, uh, visual intake because your eye, you can hear a lot, but when you look down at stuff, it solv- you know, you can solve the picture really quick.

Lex Fridman 35:00 So the third brain is doing the f- sensor fusion, uh, the integration of the different sensors and gives you a big picture view. What about the control? Like, is there, and I apologize if, if this is a dumb question, but, you know, th- people use a high-level term of autopilot. How much is there, let's use a loose term of AI, how much automation is there, how much AI is there in helping you control the airplane?

David Fravor 35:26 Um, the AI piece would be more of a control loop, uh, because of the digital flight controls. So the airplane actually, they had to make the airplane easier to fly. And when I say easy, it's relative 'cause people go, "I could do it 'cause I did it on flight sim." Real life is a lot different. In flight sim you have no apparent fear of death, you'll do things in a simulator-

Lex Fridman 35:45 (laughs)

David Fravor 35:45 ... that you would never do in real life. But, uh, the, the autonomy in the airplane to allow you to manage, I mean, 'cause you think about it, you've got a radar that's feeding you data, you've got a targeting pod that's feeding you data. All that stuff is hooked to your head because you've got a joint helmet-mounted cueing system on that re- that basically maps the magnetic field in the cockpit so it can tell where your head's at looking. So if I turn my head to the right, the radar will actually look to the right, the targeting FLIR will look to the right. And, oh, by the way, the back seater has a helmet on too, so he can look to the left and he can do things. So depending on what sensor he's controlling-So, if he's got control of the targeting pod and he looks left, the targeting pod looks left. But if I have something where I wanna lock a guy up that I don't see, that maybe the radar didn't see, but I can get over and now point the radar, you know, get the... 'Cause it's a- it's a phased-array radar now, it doesn't really scan. Uh, there's- there's all kinds of cool stuff that, uh, that technology, uh, brings. 'Cause if you just, if you'd have went back 30 years and said, "Hey," or 40 years ago and said, "Hey, we're gonna have this helmet and you're gonna be able to slew everything to your head." And I don't mean a mechanical setup, but I mean literally you're just gonna map magnetic resonance and go, "Oh, look." And- and I can- I can literally slew my sensors (fingers snap) this fast and then mash a button and transfer, you know, high-quality coordinates from a system into a joint, you know, a JDAM, which is a Joint Direct Attack Munition, that is the GPS bombs that you see all the time. And then let that thing fly and I'm- I'm solving this problem in seconds vice-

Lex Fridman 37:13 Yeah.

David Fravor 37:13 ... minutes. Or, "Hey, I got it. We're gonna have to mensurate coordinates." And you- th- you know, you bring back the data and then they do all the targeting for it, and then they send another group out to get it. Instead of all that, now it's (fingers snap) that fast.

Lex Fridman 37:24 So, there's a... Okay, I mean, we probably don't have enough time to talk about the beautiful fusion of minds that happens when two people are flying, uh, controlling the plane. But at- at a high level, this is a really interesting question for people who don't know what they're talking about, like me, which is, what is the difference between a human being and an AI system? Like, what can... What is the ceiling of a current AI technology for controlling the plane? Like, how much does the human contribute? Uh, is it possible to have automated flight, for example? Like, what is the hardest part about flying that a human does expertly that an AI system cannot?

David Fravor 38:09 Um-

Lex Fridman 38:09 In- in warfare situations, in- in flying a fighter jet line?

David Fravor 38:15 So, I would say AI systems are usually black and white. When you write the algorithm for an AI system, it's- it's- it's- it's really, it- it's basically you're taking thought and turning it into a giant math problem, is really what you're doing. Right? So, you've got this logical math problem. Math problems are, there's- there's- there's a line. It says, "I can or I can't." And it's a- it's a very finite line, you know, but i- i- you can go up to the line. Where a human, we all have gray areas where we go, "Uh, maybe. Uh, yeah, I'll try it." Um, so-

Lex Fridman 38:48 So, humans can operate within that gray area?

David Fravor 38:50 So, if you took, if you take an airplane and say, and I'll just take a Hornet for a while, or a Super Hornet, doesn't matter, any airplane. And you go, "Here is the flight performance model of the airplane." So, if you know what an, uh, an EM diagram is the energy. So, it ta- basically says, "The airplane can fly as slow as this, it can go as fast as this, it can pull this many Gs, force of gravity." You know, so one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And then based on the airfoil design and everything else and how it can pull, here's how it's gonna fly, you know, 'cause it's really physics-based. Well, if you, depending on how you write the AI, but typically AI, you don't want the airplane to leave controlled flight, right? You wanna maintain it so that it is flying in a controlled envelope. Where there are times, and you can go back to World War I, where people intentionally departed the airplane from controlled flight in order to obtain an advantage, which is that's where the human goes, "Can I do this? I know it's outside of where I would normally go, but I can do that." So, you can do some crazy things now, especially since the flight control logic in modern airplanes with digital flight controls, they're extremely forgiving. So, you can literally, th- y- I've done things in Super Hornets that literally even as a pilot inside the airplane, you're just like, "Wow, I cannot believe it just did that." Like, it'll flop ends-

Lex Fridman 40:07 Wow.

David Fravor 40:07 ... which defies most logic. And I guess in a the- in a way, you could probably program it, but I still think s- when you get to the edges, that may or may not give you an advantage. Um, there are things that a human can, w- will do that AI won't. And I don't think we've got to the point, 'cause how do you- how do you map illogical solutions, you know? Most AI is logical. It's- it's based on some type of premise. When you write the algorithm to control it, um, y- there's bounds.

Lex Fridman 40:37 Yeah. The- there's this giant mess. Like you said, the difference between the simulator and real life also gets at that somehow, that there is a, somehow the- the fear of death, all of that beautiful mess comes into play. Like, is there a comment you can make on commercial flight, like with Sully landing, uh, that plane famously, uh, versus the simulator, all of those discussions? Is there some?

David Fravor 41:04 Well, it's- it's very- it's very similar to what I was talking about earlier with the A-6. So, one is when you're flying with a crew, uh, there's standardization. So, you gotta remember, when Sully flew, when his first officer, that's the co-pilot, showed up, you know, it's the first time they'd met. And this happens all the time in the commercial world, you know? There's 6,000, 7,000 pilots at United Airlines, you know, your chance of flying with the same guy all the time is slim to none. Where in the Navy, we were crewed, so I had a primary and a secondary WSO that flew with me.

Lex Fridman 41:33 For how l- for months?

David Fravor 41:34 Oh. Oh, yeah, for like all-

Lex Fridman 41:36 Wow.

David Fravor 41:36 ... of the deployment. So, because you wanted it to know-

Lex Fridman 41:38 But these brains fuse. (laughs)

David Fravor 41:39 You have to.

Lex Fridman 41:40 Trust-

David Fravor 41:40 It, well-

Lex Fridman 41:41 ... and all of those things.

David Fravor 41:41 It increases the capability of the airplane. It's not to say we can't swap out, but for true effectiveness, especially in very complex missions-

Lex Fridman 41:49 Uh-huh.

David Fravor 41:50 ... like, uh, a forward air controller where we're in the air actually controlling ground assets and supporting ground troops. Um, if you're in a high-threat area, which is crazy busy, you have to- you have to be melded when you do that. You have to have trained to do that job. Otherwise, you're gonna be ineffective. So, when you get to the commercial world, and I've got tons of friends that fly commercial, um, there is a standardization. Like, we know that at this point, I'm gonna put this switch, you're gonna do that, and everyone, they know their roles. Captain's gonna do this, first officer's gonna do this. And they know that when the emergency breaks out, so in Sully's case, when they take the birds and they know they've got a problem, and if you've listened to the cockpit recordings of him, the two of them talking-You know, you gotta remember, they're talking to each other when you hear the full tapes, but they're also talking to the air traffic controllers in the New York area. And it's like, "Yep, we got a bird strike," and the first officer already knows, "Hey, silence the alarm." They silence the alarm. The first officer's pulling out the book, he's going through the procedures while Sully's actually flying the airplane, knowing that they've lost their motors. And you, you gotta think of his decision process, like, they're trying to get him to go into an airport into New Jersey, and he realizes, "Not happening. We're gonna put this thing..." And he made a decision soon enough so that he could prepare everyone on the airplane that he was gonna put this thing in the Hudson River, and he did it flawlessly. I mean, every single person walked away from that wreck. The only thing that didn't survive was the airplane, you know, and it got fished out of the Hudson. But, um...

Lex Fridman 43:14 What is it about those human decisions he had to make? Is that something you can put into words, or is that just deep down, some instinct that you develop as a pilot over time?

David Fravor 43:23 It's when we, when you train, uh... You know, and aviation is a self-cleaning oven, so if you make-

Lex Fridman 43:29 (laughs)

David Fravor 43:29 ... bad decisions, you're, you're... And, and the list is long and distinguished of those who have died by making bad decisions.

Lex Fridman 43:35 Oh, man.

David Fravor 43:36 Um, so when you look at what he did or the way we train, 'cause the, the commercial industry and the Navy and the Air Force, for all that, we have what's called... We have emergency procedures that we have to know. Like, the engine's on fire, the first three steps, you just have to know what they are, right? So they know. The airline, uh, same type, you know, they go, "Hey, I know this is..." They pull the book out, 'cause the airplanes are designed, they're built to have some time. But there's a point where you have to make a decision and you can't second guess it. So when he decided, "I'm putting this in the Hudson River," he couldn't all of a sudden halfway through it go, "Well, maybe I can get over to that airport." He, he looked, he made a quick assessment, and this is that 80% solution where you go, these are not... I'm... Uh, you know, it's ki-... It's like a multiple choice test when you go, "Oh my God, I don't really know the answer, but I know A and D are wrong."

Lex Fridman 44:22 Yeah.

David Fravor 44:22 Gone. So the Jersey airport and going back to LaGuardia, gone.

Lex Fridman 44:26 Yeah.

David Fravor 44:26 So what's my next option? Well, the Hudson River is there, and that's probably looking pretty good. Or what is my other one? Can I get a restart on the air- the motors, and then if I can get a restart, now can I take it someplace else? He had to make really, really fast decisions, and then once they, as they, they go that 80% solution, you realize, "All right, I'm going into the Hudson, there's the 80%." Get the book out, "Let's see if we can get an air start." 'Cause if you listen to the tapes, they're trying to get an air started. The closer he gets to the water, the more he's going, "I am ditching the airplane." So the original decision to this is my best option right now, this is where I'm going, and you start eliminating anything that could possibly change the events, which they tried to do, and then he gets to that last minute, he says, "We're going in the water." They change the plan, they secure the airplane, they do exactly what they're do, and he does that basically flawless landing on the, on the Hudson. But you gotta remember, every s- it's every six months for commercial, they go back and they do research in the airplane in the simulator where they train to the airplane being broken. You just lost a motor. You just lost another motor.

Lex Fridman 45:30 Mm-hmm.

David Fravor 45:30 So they go through this extensive training, you know, and all these... And it's, you know... You know, we used to refer to it in the Navy as the pain cave where you're gonna get in, 'cause you know that when you get in for your check ride in a simulator that the airplane is going to break. You're gonna lose hydra- And it's sometimes they're a problem, like, "Oh, I just lost this hydraulic system, but I'm having an issue on the other motor. Well, if I shut down this motor and I've got a hydraulics... You know, 'cause there's two hydraulic systems, one on each motor. Well, if I've got a issue with the left motor hydraulic system and my right motor is starting to give me indications, do I want to shut the right motor down 'cause that's gonna kill my hydraulic system that's good, and now I'm flying on a good motor with a bad hydraulic system, and without hydraulics, the airplane won't fly?" So they... It's a really... They're challenging problems that you have to think through in real time, and of course, the weather is never good. It's always dark. It's always crappy. You're gonna break out at m-... I mean, it's just all this stuff gets compiled on top of you, and it's intended to increase the level of stress because when things happen, like in Sully's case, we like to joke it's going to stem power, you know, where the functional part of your brain shuts down and you are literally on instinct, like an animal. Well, if you've trained so much that that is the instinctive reaction that you're going to have when the main part of your, your, your cognitive abilities start to shut down, you're, you're running, that instinct is ingrained so much into you that you know exactly what to do.

Lex Fridman 46:50 So-

David Fravor 46:50 And that's literally how it happens.

Lex Fridman 46:52 ... there's no, how do I put it, fear of death? Like, in Sully's case, do you think he was at all ever thinking about the fact if his decision is wrong, a lot of people are going to die?

David Fravor 47:05 You know, I can't speak for him, but I would say e- e- there was so much going on in the cockpit in that time, his, his mindset was probably, "I can do this. I'm trained. I'm gonna do the procedures. I've practiced this before. I've done these things." And I'd-... Uh, you know, I'm assuming that in his mindset, 'cause I never thought about when things were really bad, you know, if you're having problems with the airplane that, uh, you know, that I was gonna mort, you know, and, and plant it into the ground. It was always, you know, maybe it's an ego thing where you think, "I can do this." Uh, and I mean-

Lex Fridman 47:34 So you never... Have you experienced fear during flight? Like, um, I mean, one, one way we just offline mentioned Mike Tyson, when he talked about, like, uh, as he's, uh, walking up to the ring, he's like, he starts out basically in fear. And, um, yeah, worried about how things are going to go. I mean, it's p- purely to put into words his fear, but as he gets closer and closer to the ring, his, the confidence grows and grows until the ego basically takes over to where you think, "There's no way anybody could, uh, defeat me." So, like, that's, that's his experience of overcoming fear, but do you, uh, did you experience any kind of thing like that, or is that... Or do you just go to the part of the brain that goes to the training and then you just go to the instinctual 80% solution?

David Fravor 48:30 I wouldn't say I was never afraid. I think that would be...... I can't, I couldn't tell you that anyone I know that wasn't afraid at one time, and for most of us, especially Navy carrier pilots, it's just, it's, it's usually, especially when you're new and you gotta go out, and it's nighttime, and there's no moon, and the weather sucks, and the deck's moving, you know, the, the ship's going up and down, 'cause it will scare the ever-living shit outta you. Uh, can I say that?

Lex Fridman 48:54 (laughs) You-

David Fravor 48:55 Um.

Lex Fridman 48:55 ... you could definitely say that. So it's about landing and takeoff that-

David Fravor 48:58 That is, if you, even as, they, they used to wire people up. They did it during Vietnam, you know, guys would go fly missions, you know, when they were flying low and crazy stuff was going on, and people were getting shot down a lot. Uh, the highest, the highest anxiety and heart rates were coming back to land on board an aircraft carrier.

Lex Fridman 49:13 How hard is it to land on that? It seems impossible.

David Fravor 49:16 I mean-

Lex Fridman 49:16 Like, for, for a, a civilian, I guess, like me, just seems crazy that a human can do that.

David Fravor 49:23 The, the problem with night is, uh, and there's different degrees of night just like day. I mean, there's the clear, full moon night, you know, where it's like, "Whoo."

Lex Fridman 49:32 Yeah.

David Fravor 49:32 You know, this is not that bad. But you gotta remember, at night, uh, I think everyone can associate with you're driving in your car, and it's just a, it's, it's an overcast, dark night, and you're on a country road with no sidelights. Most people have a tendency to slow down just by nature of, "Oh, my God," 'cause you, you, what you'll do is you'll outdrive your headlights 'cause it is so dark, you know? And you can get outside of, you get outside of the city and get up into New Hampshire, uh, especially when the roads are curving, you know, and the lines probably aren't that good, it's, uh, you know. Now take that and multiply it by like a million, because you have no depth perception. Uh, what you think is fixed, the runway, is actually moving-

Lex Fridman 50:14 Mm-hmm.

David Fravor 50:14 ... um, and so-

Lex Fridman 50:14 Up and down, left and right. I mean, just-

David Fravor 50:16 Yeah. Oh, and when it's really bad, you can actually see it move.

Lex Fridman 50:19 (laughs)

David Fravor 50:19 And, uh, we have two systems. Uh, you know, there was a, there's an automatic system, uh, that's actually, uh, it stabilizes with the inertials on the ship, and then there's the ILS now. Civilian pilots will tell you that ILS is a precision approach, which gives you azimuth and glide slope. You know, you come down, you, it's like a plus. Um, on the carrier, it's not. It's really just a beam that goes out, and it's considered a nonprecision approach. It's, it's not stabilized at all that. And you, I've been where you can actually watch the needle, and the, and the, the TACAN needle will move. There's all kinds of stuff moving 'cause the, the, the base that it's all sitting on is doing this. And ships don't just go up and down. They, they, they do this, so the bow goes up and down, and the tail, like you normally see a ship, and then there's ... So that's pitch. And then it has roll, so it's doing this, and then it has heave, so the whole boat is going up and down while it's pitching and rolling, and you're gonna land on that. Um, so-

Lex Fridman 51:11 (laughs)

David Fravor 51:11 And it, it's, I mean, I remember landing this. I was with Chris, uh, Sado, and, uh, Chris and I, we were off the USS Ranger, which is now decommissioned. It's sitting, getting turned into razor blades. Um, we're flying the old A-6, and we come in, and it was off of San Diego, and it was just an ugly night 'cause San Diego always has a marine layer that is about 1,200 feet. It was lower than that that night. And it was pouring down rain, it was an El Nino year, and there's thunderstorms all around. It was just the craziest night I've ever seen out of San Diego. And I remember landing, and your adrenaline is so high that you're shaking. I mean, you literally can't stop. And we had spun around out of the landing area, and we parked w- we call it the Six Pack, so it's right in front of the island. So if you see an aircraft carrier with the island and the number of the ship on it, we're sitting right in front of that, and we're looking at the landing area. So it's like, you know, you got front row seats to the concert.

Lex Fridman 51:58 (laughs)

David Fravor 51:58 And, and this, this, this EA-6B comes in, you know, ugly pass. He ends up catching a one-wire, which is the first one. You never wanna catch the first one, which means you're not really high above the back of the ship when you landed. And it comes in, and the, the exhaust on an EA-6 or an A-6 actually points kinda down, and it blows, and it's blowing all the standing water on the aircraft. That's how hard it's raining. And you literally could not see across. I mean, I could see the front of my airplane, his airplane, and then it was just white 'cause of the water being blown off the deck.

Lex Fridman 52:27 Wow.

David Fravor 52:27 And I, I'm shaking, and I, I, I, uh, I'll never forget. I looked over at Chris, and I said, "Oh, my God." I go, "Hey, dude, man, 10,000-foot runway looks really good right now." And I go, and I'm, I'm shaking. My hand's like this, and I said, "I'm not even, this is, I'm not faking this, dude." (laughs) I go, "That's literally, I cannot stop shaking." I said, "That scared the ever living shit out of me."

Lex Fridman 52:44 Yeah.

David Fravor 52:44 Um, but you-

Lex Fridman 52:46 Right.

David Fravor 52:46 But it scares you afterwards. You don't, during it, you're not, "I'm not..." You don't have time to think about that. You're doing it. You gotta do. There's, uh, you know, kind of the quote from Tom Hanks in, uh, uh, what's that, uh, the girl's baseball movie? Where he goes, "There's no crying in baseball." Well-

Lex Fridman 53:01 Oh, yeah. (laughs)

David Fravor 53:02 ... that's our joke. There's no crying in naval aviation. I said, "You can, you can fly around and cry all you want at night, but, you know, there's only one pilot in those airplanes, and you gotta land it. So you can cry all you want-"

Lex Fridman 53:11 Beautifully put.

David Fravor 53:11 "... wipe the tears away, you know, put on your big kid pants, and it's, it's time to, it's time to, you know, man up and, and land the, land

David Fravor 53:18 the jet."

Lex Fridman 53:18 Sorry for the romantic question, but going back to the, the kid that dreamed to fly. Wh- what's it like to fly an airplane? What, it looks incredible.

David Fravor 53:31 To me-

Lex Fridman 53:31 Like, as, as a human, like, a descendant of ape, I sit here on land and l- look up at you guys. It seems incredible that a human being can do that.

David Fravor 53:40 Uh, you know how people ask, uh, you know, I'll be sitting around with my friends, and they're like, "Well, how was it?" I said, it, it, "The greatest job on the planet."

Lex Fridman 53:47 (laughs)

David Fravor 53:48 I said, "You know, you, it's, it, it's a office with a view 'cause you're sitting in a glass bubble."

Lex Fridman 53:52 A office with a... (laughs)

David Fravor 53:53 Um-

Lex Fridman 53:53 Hilarious.

David Fravor 53:54 You, you can do, uh-

Lex Fridman 53:56 Ugh.

David Fravor 53:56 You know, it's like roller coasters. You go, "Oh, it does all this cool stuff." So we take people flying every once in a while, and it's like, "Oh, yeah, I like roller coasters." I go, "No, take any roller coaster, coolest roller coaster you've ever been on, and multiply it by a thousand." I said, "It's an experience," uh, you know, to put your body under, you know, you know, the jet's rated at seven and a half, but it'll pull up to 8.1 before it overstresses. Depends on fuel weight. So, I mean, you routinely get up there towards eight Gs. Um, to be able to do that to your body, I mean, it takes a toll. Like, I can't really turn my head real good anymore and, and stuff like that, but, uh, would I trade it? I mean, it was a childhood dream. And how many people get to do that, you know? Professional, "I wanna be a NFL," you know, and you end up to the NFL, which is-

Lex Fridman 54:39 I actually did.

David Fravor 54:39 ... a very small percentage, but, "Well, I wanna fly jets and, and," to fly...You know, at the time, when I was flying, the Super Hornets that we had in our squadron were brand new, like literally right out of the factory. I'd come off our first Super Hornet cruise. We had went to the Boeing factory in St. Louis where they were building my new jets that I was going to get, and I actually signed the inside of one of the wings-

Lex Fridman 54:58 Hm.

David Fravor 54:58 ... um, while they were putting it together. So, I'm meeting the people that are putting the jet together that's gonna get delivered to me in a couple of months that I'm gonna fly. So, uh, just, uh, I mean, the-

Lex Fridman 55:08 Just the whole of it is incredible.

David Fravor 55:10 It's, uh, I, I, I, it's... I'll tell you what, when I left, when I decided to walk away, uh-

Lex Fridman 55:15 Yeah, do you miss it?

David Fravor 55:17 I told myself I wouldn't. I, I promised myself that, you know, once you get through your 05 command, your flying really starts to tag, uh, to come down. You know, even if you, when you're an airwing commander, which is, uh, we call them CAG, Carrier Air Group commander, um, you're not flying as much as like the normal pilots, nor should you be. I mean, there's young people that are coming up and it's training your relief 'cause that's the next generation. So, like currently, I have friends of mine that we served together, their kids are flying Super Hornets, right? So, to me, that's really neat 'cause I watched them when they were little.

Lex Fridman 55:51 Yeah.

David Fravor 55:52 And now, you know, one of them, who is good friends, uh, is, I won't get his last name, but Joey, uh, who gro- lived down the street from us, is a top, was a Top Gun instructor. And I'm like, "Hey, Joey's, Joey's a Top Gun."

Lex Fridman 56:04 (laughs) .

David Fravor 56:04 You know, and I'm like, "That's cool." Because, you know, I had went there and I knew him. He would come down to my house. And now to see these kids that are... Because typically military breeds military, you know, because the kids grow up in it. I mean, and I... The, the only reason that my son is not doing it is he's colorblind. So, it, it disqualifies you for being a pilot, being a SEAL 'cause he had, he had talked about doing that 'cause he's an incredible swimmer and he, he likes doing that stuff, and water polo player. But he's, uh, you know, both of my kids are... Well, my daughter is a doctor and my son's in his third year, so.

Lex Fridman 56:35 But there's a, uh, th- I suppose, I mean from my perspective, a bittersweet handover of this incredible experience of flying to the younger generation. So, you don't... You told yourself you're not gonna miss it. Do you miss it?

David Fravor 56:50 Uh, there are days I do when I hear jets. Like, if I'm around a base or a jet flies over... But I have all the memories, so I can look at it-

Lex Fridman 56:58 Yeah.

David Fravor 56:58 ... and go, "It can't go on forever." You know, T- Tom Brady can't play football, but there's gonna come a time where he has to stop.

Lex Fridman 57:06 Well, I don't know. He seems to have done-

David Fravor 57:07 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 57:07 ... it for a long time (laughs) .

David Fravor 57:08 But, you know, typically when you look at it, you go, "I had the opportunity," uh, and I think as automation moves on, especially with AI, that, you know, when will, when will the last manned fighter be built?

Lex Fridman 57:20 Oh, man. It's

Narrator 57:20 such a-

David Fravor 57:20 You know, and that's that big question, you know, we just did F-35. It's over budget. It's seven years late. There's all kinds of issues when we try and do it. And then you look at some of the new stuff that's coming out that the Air Force is working on with smaller, cheaper, uh, attritable platforms that you can go, "Oh, we can..." B- 'cause if you don't put a man in the box or a, a person because there's a lot of i- incredibly talented women that do this too, um, so I'll just say that as person.

Lex Fridman 57:48 Yeah. So we say man-

David Fravor 57:49 Uh-

Lex Fridman 57:49 ... and he, we mean both men and women 'cause offline you've told me about a lot of incredible women that have flown. So, is, is-

David Fravor 57:56 I had, I had three, three female, but actually four, one of them didn't fly anymore. She actually lives right around here.

Lex Fridman 58:03 (laughs) .

David Fravor 58:03 She, she's, uh, she ended up going into a- aircraft maintenance when she couldn't fly anymore. Uh, one of the girls, uh, who everyone knows is incredibly... (laughs) She's the, one of the most gifted people I've ever met in my life. She is the vice president of Amazon Air. You can see her on TV. Her name's Sarah. Uh, incredible. And then I had, uh, Paige, who ended up taking command. Uh, she got out of fighters and went into other platforms, um, and she was a commanding officer. And then the other one is a, um, teaches leadership and she is, uh, all three of them, actually all four of the women that were direct, uh, I hope I'm not forgetting. I don't think I'm forgetting someone. Uh, incredibly, incredibly talented, uh, and a great addition to the ready room. So, anyone who gets into the, "Oh, you know, women can't do it," that's all total horse crap. Hey, you know, we can talk about the original integration (laughs) and stuff which was not done well by the military nor the Navy.

Lex Fridman 58:56 So, women can fly as good as the guys?

David Fravor 58:58 Yeah. Th- uh, you can't tell. If you pass another airplane, you can't tell if there's a man or a woman in it. It really comes down to, uh, stick and throttle, the ability to, uh, uh, extrapolate where the vehicle's going to be, where the airplane would be if you're fighting another one. You have to be able to think fast. Anyone who has those characteristics, uh, can do it. And then I think most important besides that, there has to be a desire.

Lex Fridman 59:21 Yeah.

David Fravor 59:22 And I'm not saying that everyone, if you took... 'Cause we used to track. So, when I ran, uh, we called it the RAG, it's the Replacement Air Group, it's where... So, the, the Super Hornet Training Squadron, there's two of them. There's one on the East Coast, uh, 106, and there's one on the West Coast which is VFA-122. 122 is the first one. So, I ended up going there and I ended up being the operations officer and training officer. Okay? So, we track the last 100 students. Right? So, everyone goes, "Ah." It's funny to hear students talk 'cause, "Oh, that, he's awesome. He's super." If you took the 100, there's three at the top of the list that are just naturally gifted aviators. They're well, well, well above average. It's like the person in a math class that sits down-

Lex Fridman 1:00:00 Yeah.

David Fravor 1:00:00 ... in complex math, and they just get it.

Lex Fridman 1:00:02 Yeah.

David Fravor 1:00:02 You know? At the bottom, there's the three at the bottom that are gonna struggle and there's a good chance they won't get out. And if they do get out, they're gonna have to work really hard to just maintain kind of average. Sometimes it's just the way your mind works. Not everyone is good at everything. If you took the 94 of them in the middle, they're within one mean deviation of, you know, it's there. They're all, you know, it's a... (laughs) The bell curve doesn't look real good.

Lex Fridman 1:00:27 (laughs) .

David Fravor 1:00:27 It's just a big hump and it comes back-

Lex Fridman 1:00:28 (laughs) .

David Fravor 1:00:28 ... down and everyone's right there within one-

Lex Fridman 1:00:30 Yeah.

David Fravor 1:00:30 ... mean deviation. And then you have the outliers, usually not on the high side 'cause they're gonna get through, but the outliers on the low side that don't make it through. Um, so for the most part, the Navy does a really good job, as does the Air Force, of screening. So now what, what they do... When I went, you just showed up and you started. Now what you do is you actually go fly, uh, Piper Warriors, low wing, to see can you... are you adaptable to this?... and there's an evaluation that goes through, and then if you hit a certain mark, then you're good to go, and then they put you in the primary. It's kind of like a, it's like a pre-check, you know, like the pre-SAT, the pre-SAT to go, "Hey, how am I gonna do on the SAT?" It's, it's, it's very similar to that, but it's more of a hand skill, can you adapt, because all though we live in three dimensions, like this table is not, you know, we... This is, you know, this is all has depth, width, all that. Uh, we're... It's really relative to aviation, we are two-dimensional, very two-dimensional.

Lex Fridman 1:01:22 Can you, can you explain that? So-

David Fravor 1:01:23 So, here-

Lex Fridman 1:01:23 ... our perception is actually more limited than the a- than that of an aviator?

David Fravor 1:01:28 Very much. And here's why.

Lex Fridman 1:01:30 Yeah.

David Fravor 1:01:30 So we look at, uh, let's look at a tall building. Let's look at One World Trade Center in New York, 'cause that's, uh, yeah, everyone knows what it looks like, big, tall building. Um, it's what, maybe 1,800 feet tall. Even the Burj Khalifa, Dubai, which is, like, what, 20-some-odd feet tall, it's not that big. So a Super Hornet, to do a, what a split S is, which is I'm flying, I'm just gonna roll the airplane upside down, and then I'm gonna do basically a, a C, the letter C.

Lex Fridman 1:01:56 Mm-hmm.

David Fravor 1:01:56 I'm gonna go in the top and out the bottom. So, and I'm just gonna... It's basically a vertical displacement of the airplane, so I'm going from high to low. It's very, very tight, and it does it in about, roughly about 2,500 feet, give or take a little. So you go, that is, that is a really tight vertical turn.

Lex Fridman 1:02:12 Yeah.

David Fravor 1:02:13 For example, the A6, in order to do that, was about 9,000 feet. And we look at a building that's 2,000 feet high and think, "That is tall."

Lex Fridman 1:02:20 (laughs) Right.

David Fravor 1:02:21 All right? So in, in aviation sense, when you're starting to do vertical displacement maneuvers going from 35,000 feet down to 20,000 feet in a matter of seconds, and maneuvering the airplane, because the human brain thinks... We, we, we really are, we like to be flat.

Lex Fridman 1:02:34 2D. I see what you mean.

David Fravor 1:02:35 We, we think 2D. So if I'm fighting, how you really get an advantage when you're f- fighting another airplane is to work in the vertical, because most people will do, like, one move in the vertical, and then they wanna start to flatten out because that's where we're comfortable.

Lex Fridman 1:02:48 Yeah, it's really profound.

David Fravor 1:02:49 And if-

Lex Fridman 1:02:49 Do you still think in, like, stacks of 2D layers, or no? Or do you, do you truly start to think in that third dimension, like the rich 3D world of, uh, like of, of fighting? Like do you start to actually be able to really experience the 3D nature of space?

David Fravor 1:03:09 You do because you have to project where you're gonna be. So you have to know the performance of the airplane knowing that, hey, if I do this maneuver, that I am gonna go... It's, and it's kind of like when I, when I talk about when we were chasing the Tic Tac. So the Tic Tac's coming up, and I'm at about, you know, and I've been doing this for, at the time, 16 years. So I'm looking, and I'm going, "Hey, I'm here, he's there on the other side of the circle. I'm gonna do a vertical displacement. I'm gonna go like this, and I'm gonna cut across the circle. And I'm not going to him, I'm going out in front of him. I'm going over here, 'cause I know that by the time I get through this maneuver, that's where he's gonna be, and I'm trying to, you know, basically join up on him." But I als-, al- I also had to look at it to go, "Do I have enough altitude to do this?" 'Cause what I didn't... If we're here and I do this, I'm gonna end up over here and he's gonna be above me, and then-

Lex Fridman 1:03:48 Mm-hmm.

David Fravor 1:03:49 ... you know, I have to get that energy back to get up to him. And when you're doing a max performance, it's a trade. So you have th- this is, this is really important when you're, when you're fighting airplanes and you're really max performing. So when you go to an air show and you see the air demo, he's literally playing with a... He's got a finite amount of energy, right? He can add some with the motors and stuff, but you're, what you're really doing is it's a trade-off, and you can trade off kinetic energy, speed for altitude, which gives you potential energy. The other piece is, is I can trade some of that kinetic energy for performance, because I know if I do a nice easy turn, the airplane will make it and what, doesn't bleed energy. But I know if I do a real tight, that 2,500-foot split S, that it's gonna cost me energy. So if I enter the split S at 200 knots and I do it right, I'm gonna come out at the bottom at probably 200 knots. Although I lost 2,500 feet of potential energy, I converted that to the, and that to kinetic, and that kinetic was transitioned and bled off the wings in order for me to get that high performance turn. And you have to constantly evaluate where you're at, and it's your overall energy package. So you can have a guy that's behind you that looks like he's going to kill you, but if this jet is at 400 knots and this jet is at 110 knots, this jet's just gonna pull away, drive around, and kill him in about 30 seconds. All right? It's, it's overall energy package, and that's that you gotta be constantly evaluating where you're at, and this is that 80% solution. Can I afford to do this or not? Yes, no? And you have literally a split second to make the decision.

Lex Fridman 1:05:13 It's the most incredible dance of human decision-making. The, it's just incredible. I know a million people want me to talk about Tic Tac, and, uh,

Lex Fridman 1:05:22 I, I definitely will, but let me ask the, one last, uh, ridiculous, uh, uh, uh, subjective question. What's the greatest plane ever made in history? (laughs)

David Fravor 1:05:35 Uh, depend.

Lex Fridman 1:05:35 You don't get to, like-

David Fravor 1:05:36 From, from pure speed, I would say SR-71. I think it's an engineering marvel that was actually developed in the '50s by Kelly Johnson, you know, Skunk Works, uh, for what that was able to do. And then when you get into history of it, you know how they actually built, uh... The CIA actually made, like, six companies in order to buy the titanium from Russia to bring it back and build an airplane out of titanium that we would fly over Russia. Eh, to me, that's, it's an incredible-

Lex Fridman 1:06:00 Engineering marvel.

David Fravor 1:06:01 ... thing. I think that, like the X-15, you know, the speed runs-

Lex Fridman 1:06:03 By the way, the S- the S- SR, sorry to interrupt, the SR-71 still holds the, the speed record for, of any plane, as far as I can understand.

David Fravor 1:06:13 Yeah, what's funny when you get into it is it's... Remember, fast is relative. And when I say that, I mean, so if you're going 3,000 miles an hour 100 feet above the ground, you're going 3,000 miles an hour through, you know, that's how fast you're going. When you get up to altitude, there's an indicated air speed and there's a, you know, your ground speed. So your indicated air speed is really how fast the air is going past your airplane. Well, the air is so thin up there, you may only be showing, like, 300 knots. But at 300 knots, you're really doing 2,500 miles an hour over the ground. So-

Lex Fridman 1:06:49 Mm-hmm.

David Fravor 1:06:49 ... uh, you know, like we would take the airplanes up to 50,000 feet when we had to do full, the maintenance check flights on them. So when you're doing 200, you know, and, you know, some odd knots, you're, it's actually slow for the airplane. It's, you know, you're getting, you know, it gets kinda like, it's not s- You know, there's maneuvering speeds, you know, that if I hit a certain speed in a Super Hornet-... that I have the full capability of the airfoil. If I'm below that speed, I'm going to stall the airfoil before I get to the maximum G. Okay? So when you look at something like that, you go, "Well, is it really going fast?" And, and when you look at an SR-71 that's flying upwards of, you know, 70 plus thousand feet, the air's so thin, you know, just like the X-15, you can get to a much higher speed, but the relative speed of the air going over you is actually relatively low. So the stresses on the airframe are not like they would be if you were down low. But because you're going fast to get enough air over your pitot-static system to show that you're going 300 knots, you're, you're screaming.

Lex Fridman 1:07:42 (laughs)

David Fravor 1:07:43 I mean, the fastest I ever got was I was with, uh, uh, well, soon to be Vice Admiral White. So we had taken a check flight and, uh, and I got it up to 1.78. I got a Super Hornet up to Mach 1.78. And it was... And we were just right by Pebble Beach too. And then it-

Lex Fridman 1:07:59 What's that feel like? Or is, is it just like-

David Fravor 1:08:01 It's get... When you get that fast, it start... To me, it got a little bit weird, 'cause you realize in your brain, and I did, that there's no out. If something happens, I can't eject.

Lex Fridman 1:08:10 Yeah.

David Fravor 1:08:10 E- ejection would kill me.

Lex Fridman 1:08:11 Isn't that kind of liberating in a way?

David Fravor 1:08:13 Um...

Lex Fridman 1:08:14 (laughs) Or no? That... Okay, maybe not.

David Fravor 1:08:16 Y- you always want to push the limit.

Lex Fridman 1:08:17 (laughs)

David Fravor 1:08:17 You know, it's like how fast... I could've got it going faster. It was, it was literally still accelerating when I stopped, but I had... It was fuel-limited and space-limited. (laughs) 'Cause I, you know, I'm g- I'm off the coast of California, Big Sur, and I'm going, and I'm... I can see Pebble Beach out in the distance, uh, you know, the whole Monterey Peninsula.

Lex Fridman 1:08:33 You're just going fast.

David Fravor 1:08:34 And you're doing almost 18 miles a minute.

Lex Fridman 1:08:37 Wow.

David Fravor 1:08:37 I mean, you're screaming.

Lex Fridman 1:08:38 Yeah.

David Fravor 1:08:39 I mean, that's... And then you have to turn it... Well, the airplane didn't have anything on it. It was a slicked off Super Hornet. So it was basically just the airplane, no pylons, no pods, no nothing. And then we had to get it turned around 'cause we gotta go to the exit point for the area, and I'm trying to get it down below to subsonic, and there's a bunch of things that are disabled, like the speed brakes that normally would pop out, when you're going that fast, they don't, because the Super Hornet really doesn't have speed brakes. It, it deforms the flight controls. They don't function. So you really... You're trying to maneuver, and when you're going