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

1. 0:00 – 7:13

   Introduction

   1. LFLex Fridman0:00

      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.

2. 7:13 – 12:06

   Top Gun

   1. LFLex Fridman7:13

      You're a graduate of the Navy Fighter Weapons School.

   2. DFDavid Fravor7:18

      Yeah, I am.

   3. LFLex Fridman7:18

      Better known as TOPGUN.

   4. DFDavid Fravor7:20

      (laughs) Yeah.

   5. LFLex Fridman7:21

      So, let me, let me ask the most ridiculous question. How, uh, realistic is the movie TOPGUN?

   6. DFDavid Fravor7:26

      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.

   7. LFLex Fridman7:39

      (laughs)

   8. DFDavid Fravor7:39

      And number two is, they do fly airplanes there. Uh-

   9. LFLex Fridman7:42

      (laughs)

   10. DFDavid Fravor7:43

       ... 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.

   11. LFLex Fridman8:27

       Yeah, it's no excuse.

   12. DFDavid Fravor8:27

       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.

   13. LFLex Fridman8:53

       Is it competitive like a w- as in, in the movie or is it...

   14. DFDavid Fravor8:56

       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.

   15. LFLex Fridman9:46

       Wow.

   16. DFDavid Fravor9:46

       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.

   17. LFLex Fridman11:14

       So, th- there's a bar of excellence that, uh, that the instructors demand?

   18. DFDavid Fravor11:20

       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

3. 12:06 – 24:14

   Navy pilot career

   1. DFDavid Fravor12:06

      of there.

   2. LFLex Fridman12:07

      So, you were a Navy pilot for 18 years.

   3. DFDavid Fravor12:09

      Yes.

   4. LFLex Fridman12:11

      Can you briefly tell the story of your career as a pilot?

   5. DFDavid Fravor12:15

      Yeah. Um.

   6. LFLex Fridman12:16

      (laughs)

   7. DFDavid Fravor12:16

      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-

   8. LFLex Fridman12:34

      So you've always dreamed of flying?

   9. DFDavid Fravor12:36

      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-

   10. LFLex Fridman12:59

       (laughs)

   11. DFDavid Fravor13:00

       ... 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-

   12. LFLex Fridman13:08

       If you'd have always said that-

   13. DFDavid Fravor13:08

       ... 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."

   14. LFLex Fridman13:49

       (laughs)

   15. DFDavid Fravor13:50

       Um.

   16. LFLex Fridman13:50

       (laughs)

   17. DFDavid Fravor13:50

       And it was kind of a, to me it was a little bit of a badge of honor going-

   18. LFLex Fridman13:53

       Yeah.

   19. DFDavid Fravor13:53

       ... on, you know, I kinda overcame that. But, uh...

   20. LFLex Fridman13:55

       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?

   21. DFDavid Fravor14:23

       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.

   22. LFLex Fridman15:38

       You build up a really strong gut for the 80% solution, just-

   23. DFDavid Fravor15:40

       Yeah, I'm a big believer in the 80% solution.

   24. LFLex Fridman15:42

       I love that.

   25. DFDavid Fravor15:43

       If you get 80%-

   26. LFLex Fridman15:44

       So profound. (laughs)

   27. DFDavid Fravor15:44

       ... you can go, and then you can always adjust.

   28. LFLex Fridman15:47

       Yeah.

   29. DFDavid Fravor15:47

       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.

   30. LFLex Fridman16:36

       Mm-hmm.
4. 24:14 – 40:37

   AI is the third brain of a jetfighter

   1. DFDavid Fravor24:14

   2. LFLex Fridman24:14

      Could we just pause on that?

   3. DFDavid Fravor24:15

      Yeah.

   4. LFLex Fridman24:16

      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.

   5. DFDavid Fravor24:33

      That's correct.

   6. LFLex Fridman24:34

      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.

   7. DFDavid Fravor24:59

      Well, I can tell you... So there, let, let's-

   8. LFLex Fridman25:01

      Sorry, there's a bunch of questions now.

   9. DFDavid Fravor25:01

      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.

   10. LFLex Fridman25:08

       (laughs)

   11. DFDavid Fravor25:08

       Um, so let's start with the A-6. The A-6 was really an analog airplane-

   12. LFLex Fridman25:12

       Yeah.

   13. DFDavid Fravor25:13

       ... 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-

   14. LFLex Fridman26:01

       Oh, so it's-

   15. DFDavid Fravor26:01

       ... a little TV screen and a radar.

   16. LFLex Fridman26:02

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

   17. DFDavid Fravor26:05

       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.

   18. LFLex Fridman26:12

       Is it similar to like the flare stuff? Is that, is-

   19. DFDavid Fravor26:14

       No.

   20. LFLex Fridman26:15

       ... are you... And so this-

   21. DFDavid Fravor26:16

       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-

   22. LFLex Fridman26:23

       So you're looking at like basically like dots of hard objects you're trying to avoid?

   23. DFDavid Fravor26:27

       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-

   24. LFLex Fridman26:45

       Mm-hmm.

   25. DFDavid Fravor26:45

       ... 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.

   26. LFLex Fridman26:59

       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-

   27. DFDavid Fravor27:10

       Yeah, so-

   28. LFLex Fridman27:11

       You're, you're actually just control?

   29. DFDavid Fravor27:13

       I'm, I'm flying the jet. I have the throttles, the stick-

   30. LFLex Fridman27:15

       Like literally.
5. 40:37 – 47:34

   Sully

   1. LFLex Fridman40:37

      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?

   2. DFDavid Fravor41:04

      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.

   3. LFLex Fridman41:33

      For how l- for months?

   4. DFDavid Fravor41:34

      Oh. Oh, yeah, for like all-

   5. LFLex Fridman41:36

      Wow.

   6. DFDavid Fravor41:36

      ... of the deployment. So, because you wanted it to know-

   7. LFLex Fridman41:38

      But these brains fuse. (laughs)

   8. DFDavid Fravor41:39

      You have to.

   9. LFLex Fridman41:40

      Trust-

   10. DFDavid Fravor41:40

       It, well-

   11. LFLex Fridman41:41

       ... and all of those things.

   12. DFDavid Fravor41:41

       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-

   13. LFLex Fridman41:49

       Uh-huh.

   14. DFDavid Fravor41:50

       ... 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...

   15. LFLex Fridman43:14

       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?

   16. DFDavid Fravor43:23

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

   17. LFLex Fridman43:29

       (laughs)

   18. DFDavid Fravor43:29

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

   19. LFLex Fridman43:35

       Oh, man.

   20. DFDavid Fravor43:36

       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."

   21. LFLex Fridman44:22

       Yeah.

   22. DFDavid Fravor44:22

       Gone. So the Jersey airport and going back to LaGuardia, gone.

   23. LFLex Fridman44:26

       Yeah.

   24. DFDavid Fravor44:26

       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.

   25. LFLex Fridman45:30

       Mm-hmm.

   26. DFDavid Fravor45:30

       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.

   27. LFLex Fridman46:50

       So-

   28. DFDavid Fravor46:50

       And that's literally how it happens.

   29. LFLex Fridman46:52

       ... 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?

   30. DFDavid Fravor47:05

       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-

6. 47:34 – 53:18

   Landing a jet fighter on a carrier

   1. DFDavid Fravor47:34

   2. LFLex Fridman47:34

      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?

   3. DFDavid Fravor48:30

      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?

   4. LFLex Fridman48:54

      (laughs) You-

   5. DFDavid Fravor48:55

      Um.

   6. LFLex Fridman48:55

      ... you could definitely say that. So it's about landing and takeoff that-

   7. DFDavid Fravor48:58

      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.

   8. LFLex Fridman49:13

      How hard is it to land on that? It seems impossible.

   9. DFDavid Fravor49:16

      I mean-

   10. LFLex Fridman49:16

       Like, for, for a, a civilian, I guess, like me, just seems crazy that a human can do that.

   11. DFDavid Fravor49:23

       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."

   12. LFLex Fridman49:32

       Yeah.

   13. DFDavid Fravor49:32

       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-

   14. LFLex Fridman50:14

       Mm-hmm.

   15. DFDavid Fravor50:14

       ... um, and so-

   16. LFLex Fridman50:14

       Up and down, left and right. I mean, just-

   17. DFDavid Fravor50:16

       Yeah. Oh, and when it's really bad, you can actually see it move.

   18. LFLex Fridman50:19

       (laughs)

   19. DFDavid Fravor50:19

       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-

   20. LFLex Fridman51:11

       (laughs)

   21. DFDavid Fravor51:11

       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.

   22. LFLex Fridman51:58

       (laughs)

   23. DFDavid Fravor51:58

       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.

   24. LFLex Fridman52:27

       Wow.

   25. DFDavid Fravor52:27

       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."

   26. LFLex Fridman52:44

       Yeah.

   27. DFDavid Fravor52:44

       Um, but you-

   28. LFLex Fridman52:46

       Right.

   29. DFDavid Fravor52:46

       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-

   30. LFLex Fridman53:01

       Oh, yeah. (laughs)
7. 53:18 – 1:05:22

   What's it like to fly a jet fighter?

   1. DFDavid Fravor53:18

      the jet."

   2. LFLex Fridman53:18

      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.

   3. DFDavid Fravor53:31

      To me-

   4. LFLex Fridman53:31

      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.

   5. DFDavid Fravor53:40

      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."

   6. LFLex Fridman53:47

      (laughs)

   7. DFDavid Fravor53:48

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

   8. LFLex Fridman53:52

      A office with a... (laughs)

   9. DFDavid Fravor53:53

      Um-

   10. LFLex Fridman53:53

       Hilarious.

   11. DFDavid Fravor53:54

       You, you can do, uh-

   12. LFLex Fridman53:56

       Ugh.

   13. DFDavid Fravor53:56

       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-

   14. LFLex Fridman54:39

       I actually did.

   15. DFDavid Fravor54:39

       ... 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-

   16. LFLex Fridman54:58

       Hm.

   17. DFDavid Fravor54:58

       ... 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-

   18. LFLex Fridman55:08

       Just the whole of it is incredible.

   19. DFDavid Fravor55:10

       It's, uh, I, I, I, it's... I'll tell you what, when I left, when I decided to walk away, uh-

   20. LFLex Fridman55:15

       Yeah, do you miss it?

   21. DFDavid Fravor55:17

       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.

   22. LFLex Fridman55:51

       Yeah.

   23. DFDavid Fravor55:52

       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."

   24. LFLex Fridman56:04

       (laughs) .

   25. DFDavid Fravor56:04

       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.

   26. LFLex Fridman56:35

       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?

   27. DFDavid Fravor56:50

       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-

   28. LFLex Fridman56:58

       Yeah.

   29. DFDavid Fravor56:58

       ... 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.

   30. LFLex Fridman57:06

       Well, I don't know. He seems to have done-
8. 1:05:22 – 1:11:04

   Greatest plane ever made

   1. LFLex Fridman1:05:22

      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)

   2. DFDavid Fravor1:05:35

      Uh, depend.

   3. LFLex Fridman1:05:35

      You don't get to, like-

   4. DFDavid Fravor1:05:36

      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-

   5. LFLex Fridman1:06:00

      Engineering marvel.

   6. DFDavid Fravor1:06:01

      ... thing. I think that, like the X-15, you know, the speed runs-

   7. LFLex Fridman1:06:03

      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.

   8. DFDavid Fravor1:06:13

      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-

   9. LFLex Fridman1:06:49

      Mm-hmm.

   10. DFDavid Fravor1:06:49

       ... 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.

   11. LFLex Fridman1:07:42

       (laughs)

   12. DFDavid Fravor1:07:43

       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-

   13. LFLex Fridman1:07:59

       What's that feel like? Or is, is it just like-

   14. DFDavid Fravor1:08:01

       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.

   15. LFLex Fridman1:08:10

       Yeah.

   16. DFDavid Fravor1:08:10

       E- ejection would kill me.

   17. LFLex Fridman1:08:11

       Isn't that kind of liberating in a way?

   18. DFDavid Fravor1:08:13

       Um...

   19. LFLex Fridman1:08:14

       (laughs) Or no? That... Okay, maybe not.

   20. DFDavid Fravor1:08:16

       Y- you always want to push the limit.

   21. LFLex Fridman1:08:17

       (laughs)

   22. DFDavid Fravor1:08:17

       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.

   23. LFLex Fridman1:08:33

       You're just going fast.

   24. DFDavid Fravor1:08:34

       And you're doing almost 18 miles a minute.

   25. LFLex Fridman1:08:37

       Wow.

   26. DFDavid Fravor1:08:37

       I mean, you're screaming.

   27. LFLex Fridman1:08:38

       Yeah.

   28. DFDavid Fravor1:08:39

       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 that fast, you can't turn because a 7G turn-

Episode duration: 3:56:24