New Year’s Eve, no guest, and somehow the cockpit still turns into a full-blown sitcom. Fig & RePete kick off with a takeoff that goes sideways at V1 when “rotate” gets called… and apparently t...
This week’s So There I Was episode is a Hangout — that happens when you put pilots, controllers, and a few proud troublemakers in the same virtual room and hit “record.” We swap the kind of stories...
This is what happens when you put a Navy Tomcat legend behind a camera and let him tell the story his way. Heater takes us from KC-135 tanker ops with that infamous hard hose, to the kind of “how’d...
This week’s sponsor: Antigravity A1 Drone. Learn more at sothereiwas.us/antigravity Episode 190 is what happens when you hand the mic to Captain CJ “Heater” Healy and then just try to keep up. Heat...
In this week’s episode of So There I Was, Ike joins us with stories so wild they make the Quigley, Beirut, and Cherry Point weather sound like minor inconveniences. We open with Ike casually mentio...
B-2 stealth bomber test pilot Sparky joins So There I Was to explain why the world’s sneakiest bomber still can’t go direct to Liberal, Kansas without a paperwork migraine. From “switches up, auto ...
Strap in, because Sparky’s ride from the C-17 to the B-2 is basically the aviation version of “What could possibly go wrong?” — except when everything did go wrong, and somehow nobody died. We open...
So There I Was dives into the UPS MD-11 crash, compressor stalls, and why some jets are “varsity airplanes.” Fig kicks things off with a flaming T-45 compressor stall story, then we walk through wh...
Six Marines. One table. Zero chill. This round-robin mayhem starts with a Harrier pilot fishtailing toward a hover pad in Iwakuni, Japan when a yaw reaction-control literally comes loose and starts...
Jedi’s back—and the brake-check lesson starts before the beers do. An F-4 slides into rainy Pensacola, our hero reports “good braking,” and a brick-built Marine promptly edits his vocabulary: “It’s...
Allyn Hinton, Marine and Army aviator, joins So There I Was for a wild, first-person tour from low-level Huey recons over Da Nang to Blackhawks in Desert Storm. In this Allyn Hinton interview, he r...
Nose pointed at a rock wall, rescue specialist on the skid, rotor wash bouncing off granite, and then—power loss. Abort! Welcome to the world of helicopter rescue with Double D, Arizona Department ...
Helicopter search and rescue takes center stage as DPS pilot Darrell Detty walks us through hair-raising missions, near-misses and small-town chases that feel like action movies with rotor wash. Fr...
When a 21-year-old warrant officer thinks he’s bulletproof, fate (and a very determined round of enemy fire) impolitely disagrees. In this episode we ride shotgun with Cobra 3-1 — from Duluth misad...
Two Marines-turned-airline-pilots go full hangar-talk: first solo flight stories (equal parts terror and triumph), Harrier hover witchcraft, and why unstable approaches demand the magic words “unab...
Welcome to Hangout #2 of So There I Was—a gloriously unfiltered romp of Harrier stories and V-22 tales. Expect FAA side-eye and concussion-grade comedy. RePete and a very lightly concussed Fig corr...
NOTICE***There is going to be a Zoom ‘Hangout’ With the “Numbskulls” on 24 September. If you are a Patreon member or Direct Donor you should get an invitation. If not – check back here on the 24th....
Student pilot judgment takes center stage in this absurdly true tale of near-misses, smart calls, and the mysterious power of the “E-word.” We welcome Chock as he fights through weather, maintenanc...
Booz, a freshly-minted CFI, New Hampshirite, and RePete’s daughter—whose glider-to-airline path includes a first solo at 15, a daddy-daughter cross-country in a Grumman Tiger, and a commercial chec...
Tito brought stories that will make you laugh, wince, and wonder why anyone gives gunners ANY spare time! Kool-Aid boots and hot-sauce toilets are savage reminders that no one is safe in a combat z...
