E93 Helicopter Interdiction Tactical...RON (HITRON)

[00:00:11] Speaker A: What's up, Max? [00:00:12] Speaker B: Happy Friday. [00:00:14] Speaker A: Happy Friday, bud. How's everything? [00:00:16] Speaker B: Oh, man. We are in the full spring craziness right now. [00:00:19] Speaker C: We sure are. [00:00:20] Speaker B: We just got back from a couple stand visits. [00:00:22] Speaker A: Yep. [00:00:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Heli expo. That was amazing. [00:00:25] Speaker A: You were out for about a month. [00:00:26] Speaker B: I know. [00:00:27] Speaker A: Give us all a rundown of what you did and what you were doing for the past month or so. [00:00:31] Speaker B: I did my student week up in Astoria for a heart, which was an absolute blast. [00:00:36] Speaker A: Advanced helicopter rescue school, right? [00:00:38] Speaker B: Beg, plead and talk with your command. Try to get out there. I learned so much. Fantastic group of folks teaching wicked, gnarly weather conditions. That was a blast. [00:00:48] Speaker A: Yeah. What was your favorite part? Oh, just, boy, your top favorite part. [00:00:52] Speaker B: Okay. Hovering over, like, I was about 15 foot breakers. And we had, we had deployed the swimmers for a free fall and the. And all, like, the sea spray and everything kind of came up and encompassed the helicopter and everybody got wet in the cabin and it was just the stoke level inside the helicopter was so high. [00:01:09] Speaker A: Sounds romantic. [00:01:10] Speaker B: It was. It was romantic. It was a little terrifying, but it was a blast. [00:01:13] Speaker A: That's awesome. [00:01:14] Speaker B: And then, uh, and then we popped over to Anaheim, California, for heli expo, which. Come on. [00:01:19] Speaker A: Good deal. [00:01:20] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:01:21] Speaker A: Come on. [00:01:22] Speaker B: Get out there. Look at some helicopters. [00:01:23] Speaker A: I recommend that listeners are probably starting to catch some of those recordings now. Um, we'll be dropping them two weeks at a time. [00:01:30] Speaker B: Yep. And then went out to, this is all back to back and then went to San Fran for their stand visit. They do actually fly under the bridges. [00:01:39] Speaker A: No way. [00:01:40] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know how, I don't know why, but they do. And apparently the email going around everybody sharing about the stand visit was, hey, fly Max under the bridge for your stand check or your sar check. And it's going to be good. [00:01:52] Speaker A: That's it. [00:01:52] Speaker B: You know what? It did work. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Okay. No failures. [00:01:55] Speaker B: No failures. No, they were great out there. It was a blast flying in that aorhouse. Wild. [00:01:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Seems like an awesome unit. Heard a lot of good things, obviously. And then, of course, I'm curious to see what it looks like in the next couple years. Right. With Ventura switching to sixties and then, you know, the magoo fob. Right. Basically drawing up from San Francisco. And they're going to go down to three or four, something like that. [00:02:19] Speaker B: Five command. It's going to be sweet. It's pretty cool. Also another plug, wicked cool hanger. Um, it's basically like it has glass all around with these massive windows. It looks like a hanger would look like when you're not in a hurricane area, which is pretty much super bright and really like old school. [00:02:35] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:36] Speaker A: Nice. I heard a pretty cool story about that hanger. [00:02:38] Speaker B: Yeah. The swimmer shop is up this crazy spiral staircase and, like, this Conex box attached to the ceiling. [00:02:43] Speaker A: Really? [00:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it's pretty sweet. [00:02:44] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:45] Speaker A: They're not going. They're not going to want to move out of there. [00:02:47] Speaker B: No. [00:02:47] Speaker A: Hopefully. [00:02:48] Speaker B: What have you been up to, bud? [00:02:49] Speaker A: Um, dude, trying to recover from allergies. [00:02:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I can tell. [00:02:52] Speaker A: That's about it. So apologies for my stupid voice, but that, um. And pretty much ops. Normal, man. [00:02:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:59] Speaker A: We have a. We have a pretty heavy student load right now. So, um, hopefully trying to, uh, cut chip away at that backlog of, uh, designation. Students. [00:03:08] Speaker B: Yep. [00:03:08] Speaker A: So for the students who are waiting out there, you know, hopefully we'll get you in here soon and get you through the program, but that's going smooth. And of course, it's starting to warm up out here, so. [00:03:19] Speaker B: It is. [00:03:19] Speaker A: You know what that means. [00:03:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:20] Speaker A: Things are gonna get busier. [00:03:21] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:03:22] Speaker A: Rolling into hurricane season soon, so that always brings some excitement, too. [00:03:25] Speaker B: And maybe some new podcast episodes. [00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. [00:03:28] Speaker B: Sweet, dude. [00:03:29] Speaker A: It's our stories. [00:03:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:30] Speaker A: Speaking of. Speaking of, I have a highlight. [00:03:33] Speaker B: Highlight. [00:03:34] Speaker A: Let's hear it. All right. Shout out to air station San Diego. [00:03:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Just for being a cool air station. [00:03:49] Speaker A: That's it. [00:03:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:49] Speaker A: Okay, cool. Next. No, just kidding. The guardians of the southwest, I think, is what they have painted on their hanger. [00:03:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:56] Speaker A: Always wanted to go there. [00:03:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:58] Speaker A: I think my opportunities are gone. [00:04:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:00] Speaker A: I'll never probably get stationed. Air station San Diego. [00:04:02] Speaker B: You can always ask. [00:04:03] Speaker A: Makes me sad, man. [00:04:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:04] Speaker A: I would take it. So we have OPM here, and if the detailer is listening, I will take a 60 transition to San Diego. [00:04:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:11] Speaker B: Meet you just. We'll have two of those. [00:04:13] Speaker A: I'll sign on for, like, four years. [00:04:14] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe. There it is. [00:04:16] Speaker A: Okay. [00:04:16] Speaker B: It's recorded. [00:04:17] Speaker A: It's recorded. So it's happening. No, just kidding. Um, shout out to air station San Diego. They just recently had a very, very long range medevac. [00:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah, this. So, uh, peak behind the curtain. We get these awesome emails. This was a fun email to read. [00:04:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:31] Speaker B: So I'm really excited for this. [00:04:32] Speaker A: Keep them coming, please. But, uh, yeah. March 28, the crew of the, uh, 6300 and the crew, Lieutenant Commander Paul Jungens, Lieutenant Tom Hackett, AMt to Rob Kowski and ast two, Ryan Toler. They mad evac a man with appendicitis and acute respiratory issues from the vessel discovery princess. 500 miles west of San Diego. Golly. [00:05:00] Speaker B: That is out there. [00:05:02] Speaker A: I know, man. [00:05:03] Speaker B: Holy cow. [00:05:03] Speaker A: They landed on the USS Comstock on the way out, and on the return for fuel, which actually, I didn't. I didn't realize that. I thought they could just go straight 500 miles. [00:05:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:13] Speaker A: But anyways, and then they had the coast guard 20 713 from Sacramento's cover. So one of the C 27s up there, overall, they transitioned thousand nautical miles and accumulated 9.6 flight hours. [00:05:27] Speaker B: Waiver for that one, for sure. [00:05:29] Speaker A: That's what's up. [00:05:29] Speaker B: Holy cow. [00:05:30] Speaker A: Long range, right? [00:05:31] Speaker B: There's a lot of flight time. There's a lot of distance covered. [00:05:35] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. [00:05:35] Speaker B: Good job. [00:05:36] Speaker A: Yeah. Nice job, guys. That's cool. Especially, you know, with, like, the ship ops and refuel and all that stuff. I'm sure that took a little bit of time to coordinate. [00:05:43] Speaker B: Um, thank you for sending that email. Uh, and if you're hearing this and you did a badass star case, send the email for a shout out. Uh, selfishly, I just like reading them. And then we like to give you guys a shout out, too. [00:05:54] Speaker A: Yeah, it's probably one of my favorite parts is getting the, uh, the shout out emails and hearing these stories almost, like, pretty quick, before everyone else has the news. [00:06:00] Speaker B: I also do share them with designation students, too. [00:06:02] Speaker A: I do, too. [00:06:03] Speaker B: Yep. It gets them pumped. [00:06:04] Speaker A: Yeah, man. Yeah, keep them coming, please. Um, you know, we have Miranda running the instagram, so you can share with her flights through Friday, or you can email a Max Chernow, Rob Mineo, myself, Nick Litchfield, Ryan Vandehei, Leia Steinbeck. [00:06:18] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:06:19] Speaker A: We'd all be happy to take it. [00:06:20] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll take that. We'll give you a shout out and maybe get an interview. It's fantastic. Appreciate it. [00:06:24] Speaker A: Cool. All right, let's move into the next thing. [00:06:27] Speaker B: Oh, I'm excited. [00:06:27] Speaker A: Interview time, baby. Dude, I might be getting better with these buttons. [00:06:39] Speaker B: Yeah, you're not quite as good as Rob Mineo yet. He's like little DJ Rob over there. Yeah. [00:06:46] Speaker A: Oh, man. Who are we talking to today? [00:06:48] Speaker D: Oh, man. [00:06:48] Speaker B: We have some distinguished gentlemen across the table from us. [00:06:51] Speaker A: We sure do. [00:06:52] Speaker D: The old guys. [00:06:53] Speaker A: Welcome, gentlemen. We have Commander Daniel Schrader and Commander Charlie Wilson from Hitron. [00:06:59] Speaker B: Hitron the Tron. [00:07:01] Speaker A: Is it called Hitron or is it hit Ron? [00:07:03] Speaker C: I've heard tactical Squadron Hitron. [00:07:07] Speaker D: Any way you say it. Yeah. Anyway, you say it, you're probably going there second tour. [00:07:11] Speaker A: Okay. [00:07:12] Speaker D: Say it however you want. [00:07:13] Speaker A: All right, well, since it's been recorded, it's happening. So second tour, folks. Now, welcome, gentlemen. I'm super happy to have you here today. Obviously, you know, you're here for a reason. Can you tell us why you're here locally at ATC mobile and what y'all are doing? And then maybe we can get into some intros. [00:07:30] Speaker D: Sure. Yeah, they've got us here. We're here at PCO PXO school. So every year when you get selected for a Cox or job, 711, along with the leadership development center, puts on a week long course. Right. How not to get fired as a co and exo. And so we've made it through four days. We're almost about to wrap that up tomorrow. And, yeah, we wrapped up the day with what budget today, which is why we're late. Thanks. Blake Morris. [00:07:57] Speaker A: Yes. [00:07:57] Speaker D: Budgeting. [00:07:58] Speaker C: What to buy, what not to buy. [00:08:00] Speaker A: What was his stance on golf carts? [00:08:02] Speaker D: Ooh, there's a waiver for everything. [00:08:06] Speaker A: $9,999.99. [00:08:09] Speaker D: Yeah, hashtag Holzer. [00:08:11] Speaker C: Don't buy the roof, the golf cart, and the wheels all separate. You gotta do it all as one. You can't split the purchases. [00:08:16] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. [00:08:16] Speaker D: Yeah. I'm hearing we can buy cold plunge. I'm probably gonna get in trouble for this. I'm gonna get an email. Cold plunge baths and saunas, I guess. Waverable. [00:08:24] Speaker A: I think it makes sense when you have precision marksmen and, you know, skilled helicopter pilots and crew. Yeah, I think cold plunges make sense in Jacksonville, too. [00:08:33] Speaker D: Oh, no, no, we don't have it. That's you guys. It's coming here. [00:08:35] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's coming here. [00:08:37] Speaker A: I was saying everyone should have them. [00:08:39] Speaker D: Oh, we're gonna have it. Yeah, probably. Yeah. 14 to 21 guys need it. [00:08:42] Speaker C: They're carrying 50 cow all day. Yeah, your shoulders get sore. [00:08:45] Speaker A: Kind of makes sense, right? [00:08:46] Speaker B: Yeah, rest the bones. [00:08:47] Speaker A: Yeah. So what's the number one thing that would get a. An XO or a co fired these days? [00:08:51] Speaker D: Ooh, the list is long. Every day, I think. Every presentation. Right. The last how not to get fired. Choose your own adventure. You know, pick one. [00:09:01] Speaker A: I think we could probably use our lawyers. [00:09:03] Speaker D: Yeah, the lawyer scared us yesterday. [00:09:05] Speaker B: Oh, man, 3 hours. [00:09:07] Speaker A: 3 hours. [00:09:08] Speaker C: Gotta look out for your people. [00:09:10] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. [00:09:10] Speaker C: Trust in power and play the right track for them. [00:09:13] Speaker A: That's it? [00:09:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:14] Speaker A: Cool. Well, um, quick introduction, please. Uh, commander Schrader, if you don't mind kicking it off. [00:09:21] Speaker C: Yeah. Uh, so, Dan Schrader. I'm prior enlisted guy. So did a couple years as a bosun's mate, and then, yeah, went to ocs I took the scenic route, getting to flight school. I did two cutter tours, was on a. Whoa. Yeah, I was on a 378. So it was on the Monroe, actually, during. When the Alaska Ranger case went on. And I was in Lso, and it's like, yep, that's what sold me on flights. [00:09:39] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. That's a major sardinhe. [00:09:42] Speaker C: Yeah, that was. That was a cool one. [00:09:43] Speaker A: And, yes, literally cool. Yeah. [00:09:46] Speaker C: But then I had to go get the. The old prk eye surgery, so I went to a 110, was exo on a 110, and then air station assignments. I was Traverse City and then up to Kodiak, and then went to grad school for public affairs, the advanced ed program, did a tour at a split tour between d five and lan area, and then now I'm at Hitron as the ops, and then I'll be taking over Xo this summer. [00:10:08] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's a really cool career path. [00:10:11] Speaker C: It was scenic. [00:10:11] Speaker A: Yeah, no kidding. [00:10:12] Speaker D: He's got a cutterman pen. Yeah, he usually wears it. [00:10:15] Speaker B: The. The exo of a boat before going to flight school is hilarious to me. Like, I had a friend of mine do the same thing, and you get these, like, second tour lieutenants who are like, hey, here's how you teach leadership. Blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, then they go around, they're like, hey, what's everybody's background? Like, I was an exo of a boat, and then you're sitting here in their API class. [00:10:34] Speaker C: Oh, okay, well, you're about to hear about a hat trick in a minute. [00:10:40] Speaker B: Wait, cool. [00:10:41] Speaker A: Commander Wilson. [00:10:42] Speaker D: Yeah. Hey, I'm the fun sponge at Hitron. Exo there, but kind of similar path to Dan, but o three academy grad. [00:10:51] Speaker A: Okay. [00:10:51] Speaker D: From there, I went to Key west, was on the mighty warship Mohawk deck watch office, boarding officer, and then from there, went to the coast guard cutter drum into Zexo. So I had to get the PRK thing as well. So, uh, detailer called, offered me 387, I think it was, like, in Louisiana and, you know, Gulf coast of Texas. And, uh, I said, how about the 110, you know, 200ft down the pier? So I took that, did that for two years. Got eye surgery, flight school, uh, air station Houston. After that, uh, met up with Dan and Traverse City and closed that down where the black widows up there giving. Yes. [00:11:27] Speaker A: They better be treating it well. [00:11:29] Speaker D: That's it. I was a. I mean, I'm happy to. That's a whole other episode on. On Great Lakes. Um, from there, went to the MPA program, went to grad school, did a payback in DCO 81, and from there, exo hitron. [00:11:44] Speaker A: That's awesome. [00:11:45] Speaker B: Sweet. [00:11:46] Speaker A: Basically, you just described everything that OPM said that we should do for career progressions. [00:11:53] Speaker D: They were selling it to us today. They were selling it to us. Expect three tours operationally as a pilot, and then. And then from there, you know, grad school or staff tour, and then get right back out to a pre command. And that's the, that will be the blueprint, at least for the foreseeable future, is what they're telling us. [00:12:11] Speaker A: That's definitely what it looks like, yeah. Well, well, cool and welcome both of you guys again. And hopefully we can chat about Hitron a little bit. But, you know, we've had some, some guests on before talking about the mission and everything. Of course, the most recent one was British Bob. He was awesome. [00:12:27] Speaker B: That's a great interview. [00:12:28] Speaker A: Had a really good time chatting with him. But from your perspective, you know, I guess, how would you explain the Hitchron mission to, let's say, you know, an 18 year old in the street that has no coast guard background? [00:12:41] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:12:42] Speaker C: So I'd say, you know, what do we do? We said recently, we did some social media influencer stuff. And so a lot of my friends have quoted me because I said it goes beyond just keeping cocaine out of americans noses. There is a direct national security implication for what we do. So ultimately, we've got these criminal organizations throughout Latin America. There's over 200 of them. They use cocaine as their main source of money, and they're shipping it north because that's where the biggest buyers are. And then also to Europe and Asia. But the easiest way to get it from point a to point b is via the maritime routes. So what do we do? We go out there and we interdict them. Stops them stopping that flow of money. It stops the movement of illegal weapons, stops partnerships with terrorists. There's a lot of bribery and political influence down in Latin America. So it helps stop that and kills that money flow and also just the crime. These are our neighbors, and rates of violent homicides are multiple times higher than the rest of the world. By doing that, we're hoping to stop that because that all leads to migration issue or immigration issues. We got folks at the border that are of moving because of that. So that's what we do. [00:13:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that's interesting because I actually, you know, I probably had the very shallow view of, oh, we're just getting drugs off the streets. Right. But, like, when you explain it that way, hey, you know, we're stopping all these other things, you know, political movements and such. It kind of makes sense, you know what I mean? And it's way bigger than just removing drugs from the streets. [00:14:08] Speaker D: That's regional. It's hemispheric security. Right. The migrant pressure on the southwest border directly attributed to kind of some of the stuff going, you know, going on down in Central and South America. [00:14:18] Speaker A: Okay. [00:14:18] Speaker D: Putting pressures to move those people, you know, north. [00:14:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And now the coast guard, we're able to do what we do because we have legal authority in the maritime environment where, I don't know, like why, why doesn't the Navy just do this job? Yep. [00:14:31] Speaker C: It's. Yeah, it's because of the, the legal authority we have. You know, you all, especially if you've been a prior boarding officer, you know, that mission warrant petty officers. We're also federal law enforcement officers. So we have that. We have. Congress has given the Coast Guard tons of authority. Anything in the maritime, if it's a law, we have the ability to afford enforce it. So. [00:14:48] Speaker A: Okay. [00:14:49] Speaker C: That's what gives us the power to do it. And we go out, we do it pretty well. This last year we, we stopped a little over 1.3 billion with a b in drugs for a lot. So. [00:14:58] Speaker B: Yeah, so for. We do have a contingent of non Coast Guard pilots and folks who listen to this. What is required to go to Hitron as far as, you know, aviation tours and on the enlisted and on the officer side. [00:15:11] Speaker D: Yeah. So 3710 kind of delineates and, you know, that's for the folks that aren't coasties. That's kind of our air operations man, like our bible. So the majority of what you see on the pilot side is we want second tour pilots. Right. We want them to have that experience as an AC, as an aircraft commander with some hours to have seen some stuff, get some experience in the aircraft because really when you learn on the SAR side, you're flying, you're flying the 65 and a, and a really small box, right. Almost like an airplane. I hate to say that, um, but, uh, when you get to Hitron, we ask you to expand that and expand that very, very quickly to the limits of what the aircraft can offer. Because what you're doing is you're downrange in the middle of the night, middle of the open ocean because that's where we hit them. Uh, because they're most vulnerable. They're loaded down, they've got nowhere to hide. They're in international waters. And, uh, and you're doing that at night lights out, guns hanging out the side. Right. So we want the experience not only up front, but in the back. To all of our gunners, they're basic air crew from across the coast guard that we want them to have that aviation foundation. And then we teach them to be gunners, we teach them to shoot, and we do it very, very, very well. And we do that over the course of about a year, you know. So, for a pilot coming on board second tour, you can expect maybe two months in the syllabus before we make you mission qualified. You know, you're an aircraft commander, but you're auf, kind of co pilot. And then we expect you to do a couple of deployments, upgrade to what we call a mission commander, which you're leading that av debt. Um, we'll talk about the size and composition of that here in a minute. But you're leading that crew on the back of the ship. Right. And you usually, usually hit that after about a year and a half. [00:16:41] Speaker A: Okay. [00:16:41] Speaker D: Um, on the enlisted side, it, you know, it depends. Um, pmas, we talked about our precision marksman aviation. The gunners, uh, we do want them that have that aviation background. They come, they screen, they do a selection process where you got to try out for the team. And then, uh, it's about a year long of pipeline schools. Right. And then the syllabus, once you get back, and then the first time you go on deployment, you're by yourself. That's how much trust and confidence we put in those guys and gals is that we. We trust that training process so much. The first time you're actually taking a shot downrange into an engine block with somebody 3ft away by yourself. [00:17:16] Speaker A: Yeah. That's wild. [00:17:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:17] Speaker D: So that's huge. [00:17:18] Speaker A: That is such a unique coast guard thing, too. [00:17:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:21] Speaker A: Seriously, firing a weapon outside of a moving helicopter at a moving target, dude, that's awesome. [00:17:27] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:17:27] Speaker C: And on the. So on the PMA front, you know, that's another awesome group of people and themselves. Um, they show up, they. We have a solicitation every year. So you take part in solicitation, you go out, there's fitness testing to make sure, you know, it's. It is. It's tough in the back plane. You gotta be. Be strong and fit to handle the weapons. So they got fitness tests, and then they're at the ranger shooting, and we look for progression. Not necessarily having to qualify to the same level they will a year later, but just showing not only, you know, your fitness and your basic markership skills in an early stage, just your teamwork, your coordination because you're part of this team. It's, they're looking out the window. They're helping provide info to the pilots as they're flying. And so, you know, looking for all the things that we want in that screening process. So then once we decide who. Okay, you know, out of, out of, say, 20 people, we're going to take, you know, we're going to take these eight and then we, then they start, they'll get orders, they come to Hitron and then they start the PMA process. If they're coming from another airframe, we'll get them ba qualified and give them experience in the plane as well. [00:18:27] Speaker A: Okay. [00:18:28] Speaker C: And then it's a series of schools. You know, they go to SMT, they get the precision marksman school. Come here at ATC, they're using the simulator training at home and exercises and then the syllabus and getting qualified. But it's. If I had, if I was a cat and I had nine lives, my, the remaining eight and one of them would definitely be as a PMA. [00:18:46] Speaker B: I did not know it could be for other airframes. I just learned something. [00:18:50] Speaker D: Yeah. We've got 130 guys. We've got 60 folks got. I don't think we've got anybody. 144. Right now. The biggest thing is we want them to have that aviation foundation. Right. [00:19:01] Speaker A: Okay. [00:19:01] Speaker D: Because when everything hits the fan in the helicopter at night over a boat that's trying to evade you, you know, you want to be able. Okay. [00:19:07] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:19:07] Speaker D: Accurate, bold, concise, use my voice inflection. Know where the, you know, all the switches are in the back. [00:19:13] Speaker A: Yeah. They're, they're already well versed in running emergencies. And because your precision marksmen are also your basic aircrew members. Right. So they serve both those roles. So, yeah, that makes sense. And of course, you know, they have to have like a, you know, upchid and medical clearance and all that stuff for aviation as well, so that'll make sense. But, yeah, you know what? I didn't realize that it was folks outside of the 65 community either. [00:19:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:36] Speaker A: So I definitely learned something today. [00:19:37] Speaker C: Any aviation rate can apply for it. So we've got ast, Amt and Aet. [00:19:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And third tour lieutenants they can apply for. [00:19:43] Speaker A: I know, right. When we. Yeah. What? Why not, right? [00:19:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. [00:19:47] Speaker A: Should be a thing. I don't know, maybe when they start running out of folks. [00:19:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:51] Speaker A: Awesome. So we talked about a little bit about what you do, I guess, big picture stuff. Where do you see Hitron? Maybe in 510, 20 years from now what is it going to look like? Do you think there's room for growth perhaps? [00:20:07] Speaker C: Well, I definitely know there's room for growth. This type of platform can't really talk about what we have deployed to that level, but business is booming and there are a lot more customers we could be engaging with downrange. So there is plenty of room for growth. And it's just capacity of the coast guard? I think so. Near future, what we're looking at, we've got that there's competing demands with just cutter platforms as the ovs are. The OPCs come online, we'll start to deploy on them, but we're also partnering if you want those international opportunities. We've got crews that deploy to the dutch ships. We've had crews in the past deploying on UK boats down the Caribbean. We work quite frequently with all our allies. Obviously we do quite a bit with the exchange pilot from the UK, but there's interest from France. We've got several eastern european delegations coming out just to learn more about what we do. So you get to do all this international relations stuff and you really see what they're doing. They get to come see what we're doing. Just these mutual exchanges. [00:21:07] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. [00:21:08] Speaker C: Get to go to some cool spots. [00:21:09] Speaker A: So do you guys put international partners through your training and get them up to speed on how the coast guard does business? Like outside of the. The exchange pilot that you have starting. [00:21:22] Speaker D: To be a lot more. Yeah. So every year we run an operation, you know, it was here I think last year, Operation Iron Eagle, where we invite, you know, the foreign partners, I know the Kiwis, the new, you know, New Zealand is interested in it. [00:21:35] Speaker A: I'll go, hey, I'll go to Hitron if you want to send me New Zealand as an exchange pilot. [00:21:41] Speaker B: Two of those, please. [00:21:43] Speaker D: We've got, yeah, we've got the Dutch, we've got the Royal Navy and we, I mean, I think Dan just this morning was talking to Bulgarians. So everybody, okay. And then regionally we've had Mexico reach out, we've had Columbia reach out, you know, as the giadif mission. Right. And that's the organization that kind of runs everything, counter drug in Central and South America. As they try to get more and more of the partner nations to build their capacity up, they see what Hitron does, they see the success of that and they want to build that organically. Right. And a lot more of the drug interdiction numbers that we're getting are partner nations, which is good. That's what we've wanted all along. Um, and you're seeing more and more of that, and you're seeing more and more engagement, especially on the aviation front and especially with aviation special missions and the airborne use of force role down there. [00:22:27] Speaker A: Yeah, that's interesting. Um, like, so, you know, you guys were previous SAR operators and stuff like that. But as you've gone in your, throughout your career, you've probably witnessed search and rescue missions dry up a little bit. You know, boaters are a little bit more safe. So from like a coast guard perspective, you know, maybe that mission, you know, one of our primary missions, uh, that we do is starting to become a little bit smaller. And of course, you know, resource constraint, stuff like that. Just sharing a thought. But I wonder if we start using more resources towards the mission like you do, you know, in hit run and to build that up. [00:23:00] Speaker D: Yeah. So two things here, right? So, uh, Dan talked about business being booming. Um, and we talked about Bob. Bob is loading up on a c 17 right now, coming back home off a. Off a whimsical. And I've got. I think they logged eleven busts. [00:23:14] Speaker B: That's awesome. [00:23:15] Speaker D: Just this last patrol alone. So something makes me. [00:23:19] Speaker B: Something makes me happy about the thought of Bob sitting in the back of c 130, fresh off a butt, bunch of busts. [00:23:26] Speaker D: He travels in style. Yeah, he does not do the prop job. [00:23:30] Speaker B: He's got. He's got his own like, hammock set. [00:23:32] Speaker A: Up that makes me smile. [00:23:33] Speaker B: Yeah, he's probably pumped. [00:23:34] Speaker C: Hawaiian shirt. [00:23:35] Speaker A: Hey, Bob. [00:23:36] Speaker B: Hope you're doing well. [00:23:37] Speaker D: So, you know, in that vein, yeah, business is booming. There's much more capacity for Auf down there. It's just a matter of. We got constrained resources right now with flight decks, especially with some of the migrant stuff popping off on the windward pass. It's a finite resource. Right. And so as the OPCs get online, as we start recapitalizing those surface assets, I think you'll see the mission grow. But right now it's with all the competing demands, multi mission coast guard. And with Hitron being a single mission unit, we're constrained by capacity. [00:24:10] Speaker C: You might be at a typical air station. I mean, I remember we were in traffic city and I might go a month or two before I launch on anything. It's just sleepy nights. Hitron, we average over. This is over 25 years. That average has been a one one bust every nine days. You're out there on deployment, you're getting some. [00:24:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:26] Speaker D: And back to Nick's point, like, where is the unit going with a sunset alpat right. Who is that? Shipboard service provider in the Coast Guard right now? You know, we drew down Miami, so Miami, you know, they're doing the onesie twosies, but it's Hitron. And then as we transition over the 60 and the blade fold tailfold, if we get it past the 60 union. [00:24:45] Speaker A: Right. And of course, that's like, to dispel any myths that's probably years away. [00:24:50] Speaker D: Yep. Yeah. And so what we're looking at, at Hitron, is it, you know, it's not going to be boom. Twelve helicopter swap. Let's do that over time. Let's bring the 60 community in. Let's inject some of that 65 shipboard stuff with some of the 60 goodness and kind of start mixing that early rather than just x point in time, you know, now it's all 60. [00:25:09] Speaker A: So that's, that's a brilliant idea. [00:25:10] Speaker D: That's what we're trying to do. Same thing with the PMA is what we were talking about, I think, before we start recording. But under one roof. Right. Especially with a single mission, with especially how much risk the organization takes in that mission, shooting live weapons at fleeing boats. You want all that goodness to be under one roof. And if we can do on the PMA side and on the aircraft side, 6065, it's better for the whole, for the whole service. [00:25:31] Speaker C: Make it more of a sunset rather than a light switch. [00:25:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's never really a good plan, is just to do a light switch type swap. Right? Hey, one day we're doing this, next day it's a whole different crew, whole different platform, and. But back it up real quick. So we're talking about maybe some of the constraints in regards to parts and stuff, and this is another myth I wanted to talk about, but here at ATC, we have our part shortages and stuff like that. Operational units, of course, have theirs, and I've always heard that Hitron probably has some sort of priority as far as getting parts, probably well before anybody else. So one, is that true? [00:26:11] Speaker D: It's a Willy Wonka golden ticket. [00:26:13] Speaker C: It's like, it's like dumb. And dumber didn't bring an extra set of gloves. No, that's not true. [00:26:21] Speaker D: It's funny you say that, because we're having the same conversations in the PXO, PCO, PXO class, right. And it comes down to the operational commanders, lant and pack area. Same thing when it comes to, hey, we've got a finite number of pilots. We're going to have to be gapped. Where do you want those. And it's the operational commanders from their perspective, they take that strategic guidance from the commandant and then they employ it. And Lan area is a very good advocate for us. Right. We are the only air station that works directly, wholly for lan area. Our priority is the aircraft downrange. So we will go down to zero aircraft at Hitron. We'll cannibalize everything we can to keep the aircraft downrange up. [00:26:57] Speaker A: Gotcha. [00:26:58] Speaker D: Just because that's the kind of operational guidance we get from land area. And so when it comes time for. We got x widget now. Right now it's tailwater servos. Right. They make the case based on the needs and who needs what in Lan area, that these are the units that get it. And so that's coming from Lan area. We make our case, they know what we're doing down there. I think they've got a lot more visibility on what we do, but ultimately it comes from the operational commander. And then that goes to ALC and then that's their fedexing it to us for sure. [00:27:24] Speaker B: That's awesome. [00:27:24] Speaker A: Speaking of ALC, I want to give them a quick shout out because I did their stand visit. You asked me what I've been up to. Actually, ALC was one of the things I was up to, but went out there for just a week for their annual stand visit. And, man, it was impressive to see what they do there. And it was eye opening for me. It's very easy to place blame on ALC. Like, what do you mean we have a part shortage? I don't understand. But when you actually get there and you see the hundreds of people who are supporting our platform, the 65 platform, it gives you a lot of pride. And they're all proud of what they do. They specialize. You have your folks at that specialize in rewiring the aircraft and doing engine work and main gearbox, tail gearbox work. And it was cool as hell just. [00:28:07] Speaker D: Walking the line it from bones to doing runs on the flight. [00:28:11] Speaker A: And we went to the supply building, too. I don't know if you guys have been in there, but it is a. [00:28:15] Speaker D: The Walmart. [00:28:16] Speaker A: It's. Yeah, basically like a Walmart building. They do have a Walmart. [00:28:19] Speaker B: I highly recommend, if you are in Coast Guard aviation, getting out there. [00:28:22] Speaker C: Oh, it's going for a visit. [00:28:23] Speaker A: It was eye opening, but, yeah, huge shout out to the folks at Alcat for really just keeping us flying. I know that's our motto, but they do. But no, thanks for sharing that because I always thought that was probably a true thing that Hitron had parts priority because we don't here at ATC mobile. So we might have aircraft that's down for a while and that's fine because operators should probably have priority. But that's a whole other story. [00:28:50] Speaker D: Yeah. And we just don't see that at the unit level. Right. Like, hey, our units most important, our missions most important, we don't have necessarily that, that higher level view of, hey, what's actually important to the lan area commander, the pack area commander, the commandant. [00:29:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:29:03] Speaker A: It's crazy though, the, the level of decision making or people who are involved in these things to like basically determine, hey, here's a, you know, a small part. [00:29:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:12] Speaker A: Who's he going to? [00:29:12] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [00:29:13] Speaker D: It's a dart board. [00:29:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:15] Speaker B: I like to think it's mostly Mike Flint making those decisions, but. [00:29:18] Speaker A: Well, no, he's on the 60. [00:29:20] Speaker B: I know. [00:29:20] Speaker A: So. [00:29:20] Speaker B: I know. [00:29:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:22] Speaker B: Rip, rip. [00:29:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you guys know Mike Flint? [00:29:25] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. [00:29:25] Speaker A: Okay, cool. [00:29:26] Speaker B: I have a question for you personally. What can the folks coming into Hitron expect days away from home annually. [00:29:35] Speaker C: So it varies it. Right now it's probably between 70 and 90 is total ddas. That's from the time you get on the c 17. Explain a little bit too, the way the deployment holds. If you're going to the eastern Pacific, ac 17 from the air force will land and we load up and the helicopter is folded up. Weve got that. The HSk weapons and your crew and you fly out. So one nice thing about Hitron, we do get to spend a little bit of time in San Diego too. So you go out there, unfold, we embark the cutter and then youre out for a period of time. We break that up and it depends on the length of patrol but we generally try to break it up. So its between 30 and around 50 and then you might have one or two deployments in the course of the year but were very mindful of that. We work with Lant to adjust that, that rheostat for dds, but you're looking probably at their brands. We have some folks that are a little bit higher and the generally you're higher in the first year but then it trickles off after that because we want to get you the experience so you're ready to roll. Going for the MC syllabus. [00:30:32] Speaker A: That's actually a lot less days away than I had previously thought. [00:30:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought I was going to say somewhere in the nineties. [00:30:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:37] Speaker D: We've tried to right size that right. Like don't get us wrong, there were folks that have been out there, you know, 100, 110 days a year, and that's, you know, sur, jobs. During the end of it, the Trump administration, we did the big Southcom surge and then with a pilot shortages. Right. Like, every unit's got gaps right now, and we're trying to right size that on what that looks like. So we're not doing our x amount of days underway with, you know, 20% less pilots. And lance been great with that, you know, open conversation. We're able to right size that to make sure that we aren't doing it on the backs of the people that we're actually doing less with less. [00:31:09] Speaker A: Right. [00:31:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:10] Speaker A: Yeah. That's a big topic, too, you know, trying to figure out what that looks like. Right. [00:31:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:14] Speaker C: Yeah. And when you're back home, I mean, you have your, you know, you go in for your night flights, you have that, you've got your, everybody's got collaterals. But we're really good. Like, hey, we don't, you know, if you have a night flight, you're not, you know, you're coming in late. We want to make sure you reset. So if I do need in the day, we got you for that. Uh, but when you're home, you're home. Your nights and weekends are yours, you're there. [00:31:33] Speaker A: So what's your wardroom size? [00:31:36] Speaker C: Um, we've got, uh, billeted for 44. [00:31:39] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:39] Speaker C: Line pilots and then the five department heads and command cadre. [00:31:42] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, that's, that's pretty big. [00:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:45] Speaker D: Wardroom's only about 250 sqft down. [00:31:47] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:48] Speaker D: It's an old, it's an old air traffic control tack. Oh, that's probably bigger than that. [00:31:51] Speaker A: Oh, really? [00:31:52] Speaker D: You've never been super cool. [00:31:53] Speaker B: Yes. [00:31:53] Speaker A: You know, I flew down one time for a part pickup, actually, from Savannah. [00:31:59] Speaker D: Okay. [00:31:59] Speaker A: We came down, we pulled apart from you guys. [00:32:01] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:32:01] Speaker A: Or, no, no, no. Maybe we dropped parties. I didn't want. [00:32:04] Speaker B: I did one where we dropped parts off. Maybe we're so close, I can't throw the part. Okay, we're gone. [00:32:09] Speaker A: That was a cool story, though. I was like, oh, cool. We're going down hitron real quick. It was a quick turn, though. We dropped it off, kept turning, and we boogied back up. [00:32:16] Speaker D: Nice. [00:32:16] Speaker C: That's fun. Pilot train. You're sitting up there and, you know, helicopters heading in and out, jets taking out. Cause we're co located with a Boeing facility. So f, all the Boeing aircraft come in and out as well for maintenance. So. [00:32:27] Speaker D: Second longest Runway in the state of Florida. Little known fact. [00:32:30] Speaker A: Oh, really? [00:32:31] Speaker D: Behind NASA. [00:32:31] Speaker A: Oh, is it a. [00:32:32] Speaker D: So you get all the Navy P eight, you know, students coming through there and it's an air show every day. [00:32:36] Speaker A: Was it a backup shuttle Runway back in the day or something? [00:32:41] Speaker D: I don't know if it was that. So it was an old naval air station, right? If you remember, what was the movie? Cuban missile crisis. [00:32:47] Speaker C: Oh, 13 days later. [00:32:49] Speaker D: Was that it? [00:32:50] Speaker B: Oh, no, I know what you're talking about. [00:32:52] Speaker D: I'm gonna say the wrong number and I'm gonna get roasted for it. That movie where they were launching the reconnaissance flights into Cuba, that was NAs Cecil Field. It was a Navy master jet base until 99. And they bracked it and then gave it to the city. That's when Hitron came on board. So long runways. Cause an old fighter bomber base. [00:33:08] Speaker B: Yeah. The title of this movie is gonna come to me as I'm giving the basics heart check tonight. [00:33:13] Speaker C: Comments? [00:33:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody's gonna be, he's gonna be plugging the search pattern, the CDU and be like, yeah, there it is. [00:33:19] Speaker C: So if you're not good at tail rotors, you got plenty of Runway. There you go. [00:33:23] Speaker A: Okay, I'm going hit. [00:33:26] Speaker D: Yeah, we're gonna throw his name out there. Scott's cool. [00:33:28] Speaker A: So you saying I have 7000ft to figure this out? [00:33:31] Speaker B: Yeah, perfect. [00:33:31] Speaker A: And it's probably twelve five. It's probably wide. [00:33:34] Speaker B: Yeah, twelve five. Because we. [00:33:36] Speaker A: Oh, really? [00:33:36] Speaker B: Savannah was the shuttle divert site. We were somewhere around 12,002, I believe. It was a long Runway. [00:33:41] Speaker A: Yep. [00:33:42] Speaker B: It is wild. You go down there on those long runways in a tiny little 65 and you're like, jeez. [00:33:47] Speaker A: Yeah, dude, you could really jack up a towel and probably still pull it off. [00:33:50] Speaker B: Yeah, it'd be okay. [00:33:51] Speaker A: Yeah, dude, you know what? So I have, I have this old poster in my house. I must have took it from work or found in the trash or something like that. But it's, it's that coast Guard aviation poster. It has all the different types of helicopters that we flew. You know what I'm talking about? [00:34:06] Speaker B: Did you steal that from the supply room in Savannah? I know exactly where you stole that from. [00:34:10] Speaker A: Yeah, probably where. [00:34:11] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:34:12] Speaker A: So, you know, things just be sitting around. Yeah, you better keep your eye on them. Anyways, I looked at it the other day, just randomly, and I saw the old H 68. [00:34:22] Speaker D: 68. [00:34:25] Speaker C: That was my first road. That was my, my. I was on deployment. That was my orientation flight. [00:34:29] Speaker A: No way. [00:34:30] Speaker C: So I got flying the 68 left seats. [00:34:31] Speaker A: That's cool, dude. I saw that and I was like, yeah, this thing looks cool. As hell. [00:34:35] Speaker B: I think there's a parking lot named after that here at ATC, probably. Yeah. It's like Stingray parking. [00:34:39] Speaker A: Cool. Um, but, but, but down below it said basically, like the years it was flown. And I think it was like, close to ten years that the coast guard operated that thing. Yeah. [00:34:48] Speaker D: And I think we're trying to put like. And I'll butcher this, but there's a very good hitron history series that Ace Castle did when he was lant public affairs, so. And I know they did like a little segment there, but. Yeah. Started with the MH 90. Right. The no tar helicopter. And then it moved to, you know, they're all leased helicopters. Moved to the 109. That's what I remember Hitron being way back in the day. And then once we built the capacity up in the 65 fleet to take the mission, we transitioned to 65. But everybody I've talked to that flew the 109 just had power for days. [00:35:17] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:35:18] Speaker D: You know, just a great helicopter to fly. Super small. Way smaller than the 65. [00:35:22] Speaker A: Okay. [00:35:23] Speaker D: But very maneuverable. [00:35:24] Speaker C: I think that was contract maintenance, too, I believe. [00:35:27] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:35:28] Speaker A: Oh, really? Okay. [00:35:29] Speaker B: And what's the new flight school? Cause that's a aw too, right? [00:35:32] Speaker A: It's a. The new one's an AW 109. [00:35:35] Speaker D: 109. [00:35:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:35:35] Speaker B: So that is the. The predecessor to the one that we operated. I'm sorry. [00:35:40] Speaker D: Well, it's got skids. [00:35:42] Speaker A: There's a picture in the upper left there. [00:35:43] Speaker B: I wish I was better. [00:35:44] Speaker D: I think it's a different helicopter. [00:35:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:45] Speaker B: But, man. Yeah. [00:35:46] Speaker D: The same company that makes it. [00:35:48] Speaker B: Yeah. That's awesome. [00:35:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Really good looking helicopter. Oh, yeah, yeah. So as. As basically. So, you know, we're doing a huge coast guard wide 60 transition. [00:35:57] Speaker D: Right. [00:35:57] Speaker A: We're going to be an all 60 fleet eventually. But as the 65 units start going away and transitioning to 60, um, you know, rumor on the street is that a lot of these 60 parts or whatever, maybe even aircraft, are going to be kind of fed towards Hitron 65. Sorry, 65. Thank you. [00:36:14] Speaker C: We've heard that same rumor. [00:36:15] Speaker A: Like, it's the idea to basically, like, maybe Hitron's the last unit flying the 65 before you transition to sixties. [00:36:24] Speaker D: And we've got the quad P brief is tomorrow, so I think we're going to get the answers there. But everything that I've heard, I don't want to run afoul, like, 711 and 40 one's, like, siding plan. [00:36:31] Speaker B: It's okay. Whatever you say on this podcast ends up happening. [00:36:33] Speaker D: Yeah. My name is Daniel brought hers. But no, the. I mean, the thinking is that I think it's going to be NCR, right. Once we stand up that capability to Andrews and then Hitron going to be the last 65 units. [00:36:46] Speaker A: Okay. [00:36:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:47] Speaker D: And I think that's just a function of like, we need ships to operate with the OPCs kind of behind schedule. And as we still recapitalize that, we're going to need to be the last. [00:36:56] Speaker C: And that's consideration too, because we're doing the shipboard. So there's still two tens and you can't fit a 60 on a 210. So, you know, until, until those go away, we need to maintain the ability to get on that thing. [00:37:06] Speaker A: It makes sense too. How about, how about this? From a flying perspective, which aircraft would do the Hitron mission better, the 65 or the 60? [00:37:17] Speaker D: My mic's cutting out. [00:37:19] Speaker B: Or the t six? [00:37:20] Speaker C: Oh, no. [00:37:21] Speaker A: Okay. [00:37:22] Speaker C: Advantage of the 60, it's got, it's got power and fuel, right? So I mean that does, that allows for longer range. [00:37:28] Speaker D: So I think, yeah, if you talk to our guys. So one little known thing about Hitron is we've got our own small boat station, right? We've got what we call the TTB. It's a 39 foot midnight express, got three outboard engines, we've got a boson 17, you know, across bms and MK's that run it and all they are is our op four. Right? So if our crew see a tactic downrange tonight, they can brief that back through our intel shop and then we can have that replicated out on the river tomorrow night. Right? And so when those guys go out. Cause they fly against sixty five s and they fly against sixties 60, just have all the power in the world and the maneuvers that they do to try to get away from us, a 60, I mean, just power out of it. Right? And they can't beat them. [00:38:06] Speaker A: Okay. [00:38:07] Speaker D: So I think what we kind of get away with, with finesse, maneuverability of the helicopter, the sixties should just beat out of them with power. [00:38:14] Speaker A: Interesting. Okay. [00:38:15] Speaker D: And so it's very interesting to hear it from their point of view. Cause they're, you know, the smuggler. Um, each aircraft kind of has its own uh, weaknesses and strengths, but the, the 60, as far as being able to maintain on target just with all the power they have. Yeah, but again, that's a bunch of boats and mates saying that I would. [00:38:32] Speaker B: Have just gone with, hey, doesn't matter, you just put a coast guard pilot in the right seat. [00:38:36] Speaker C: And I gathered from that, you know what? 65. [00:38:39] Speaker A: 65 pilot in the 60. [00:38:41] Speaker B: Ah, done. [00:38:42] Speaker A: Perfect combo. [00:38:43] Speaker B: Done. [00:38:44] Speaker D: There's that transition. [00:38:45] Speaker A: Yeah, we're already making it happen. [00:38:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Nick's trying to get NCR to go. T six is. [00:38:50] Speaker A: So this is. This is my proposal, and, of course, since it happens on the podcast, it will happen. So, for NCR, you know, talking about shortages and stuff, you know, I know there's very passionate RWI pilots and crew members out there, but co one, get rid of it. CO2, replace the 65s with t sixes, and you'd have people lined up trying. [00:39:10] Speaker B: To fly, and we could just call it Top Gun. [00:39:11] Speaker A: It wouldn't be the t six. [00:39:12] Speaker D: It'd be the Colombians are flying it. Right. It looks awesome. [00:39:18] Speaker A: And you know what? You get to go pretend to be a jet pilot, and it would be a lot of fun. I'm sure the maintenance hours would be less, and, yeah, that was a fun airplane. [00:39:25] Speaker C: That was my. I was the first squadron to go through that. I think I was one of the first classes to go through the t six. So, yeah, that was. That was a lot of fun. [00:39:32] Speaker A: So you guys had. Was it braking or landing speed issues at first? Was it something like that? You guys blowing out tires? [00:39:38] Speaker C: We had that. That flap that came down. A lot of people wouldn't do that. Someone on the Runway. [00:39:42] Speaker A: Who? [00:39:43] Speaker D: A lot of people. Is that you? Not me. [00:39:46] Speaker A: So, my favorite thing in that aircraft was dropping that speed break and just falling out of the sky. [00:39:51] Speaker B: That was cool. [00:39:52] Speaker A: God, that thing is gonna speed. Yeah. [00:39:53] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:39:54] Speaker C: There was somebody on the. When I was there, actually, my roommate. She was in the back and accidentally hit the eject or hit the canopy. [00:40:02] Speaker B: The Tiffas. [00:40:04] Speaker A: Oh, no. [00:40:04] Speaker C: Hit that. And then they just came slammed on the brakes. The instructor says, are you even still back there? Yes, I'm back. [00:40:11] Speaker A: Hey, everyone's just figuring out how to. Yes. Cool. So I'll ask you maybe a couple more questions, but, you know, hopefully not too sensitive. But what are some of your current unit challenges? Maybe the most significant type. [00:40:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I think, you know, the first one is the same thing everybody's facing, whether you're. Whether you're aviation or not. And that's the personnel shortages, you know, so that. That's one thing we're still, you know, we're pushing back against. You know, historically, people have not wanted to come to Hitron, and I think part of it's, you know, the fear of being away on deployments, they don't want to do that. And then, you know, I know for a time, that. And promotions and selections weren't going too well, so I think, to kind of counter that, you know, the, you know, deployments are what they are. They're pretty fun. It's a challenging mission, but even for, you know, future career goals, you know, we've got a guy going to Harvard this year for the NPA program. Had a lot of success with people in, you know, getting into safety programs, other, you know, postgraduate schools. We've had folks picked up for hats. Itron's also. It's. You have to be a hitron alumni in order to go to do the UK exchange program. So those are all pipelines that you get to do. So, yeah, we've had a lot of success. Really, really good success on promotion. So that kind of. That kind of counters the personnel issues. Again, we're all seeing. The whole fleet seeing the maintenance issues. Yeah, that's just the way it is. I know the folks at ALC are doing their best and they're, you know, they're helping us out. [00:41:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:38] Speaker D: Yeah. And I would say on the hanger deck, it's a juniority. Right? [00:41:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. [00:41:42] Speaker D: We've got Arap program in full swing, so. Although it's not, and I hate to use OPM terms and exo terms, so you're going to fall asleep here, but, like, it's not body to bill it. Right. It's fit to fill. Um, and you've got a lot of these a wrap billets that come in that are filling your AMT three, Aet three positions. And on. On, pal, it looks good, but on the hanger deck and especially at a deployable unit here where, uh, you know, our typical AV debt is two pilots, a gunner, so that's a three, aircrew. And then you've got a plane captain, which usually an e six or an e five, to charge all the deployed maintenance. And you've got two junior maintainers, Amt and an Aet. And it's a team of six that goes out and does that. Right. And we're asking, you know, folks with less experience, more junior folks to do that, but they're stepping up and they're filling it. And I think it's a testament to the training they're getting and just the autonomy we give them underway. Right. We've got no other choice. They step up and. And they do that for us time and time again. [00:42:37] Speaker C: Yeah, we've had a lot of awesome playing cabinets out there, you know, just catching maintenance things and just, you know, really take on the leadership role. I mean, it's your. You're a future maintenance warrant and training when you're a playing captain. Yeah, they're doing this at junior e five levels and just do it out there. Doing an awesome job. [00:42:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Huge level of responsibility, but love to see it. And, you know, that's never really been too unique in the Coast Guard. Right. You know, we give huge amounts of responsibility to e five boat drivers to go out and execute, you know, big missions and stuff like that. So it's probably, I guess if you want to draw a comparison between the aviation and the boat community, that might be it. But I love to see it. I really do. With that being said, what do you think the biggest challenges in Coast Guard aviation are and if they're different from what you think your unit challenges are? [00:43:21] Speaker D: Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me is just getting the reps right, getting the flight time you need to stay proficient. We've talked a lot about that this week for the incoming cos and exos going out to the fleet. And I think hearing from across everybody, that's the biggest challenge. Right. I think Covid did not do any favors for us when it comes to the folks that kind of grew up, graduated flight school, came through ATC here during that time frame, and we're having to catch up on that. So that normal, you know, x amount of hours, whatever that is, for a, for a junior pilot to feel proficient. You know, I think we're having to kind of double up on that almost. Right. Because you're making up for all that lost time. And we're seeing it for the folks coming into hitron where traditionally we were getting them with higher hours and now were getting them right at the minimum. [00:44:05] Speaker A: Yeah, thats actually another good point too. And now that you mentioned it, I have a question. But we had that it was like a 10% reduction in flight hours or something like that during COVID times. And of course were catching up. I think were doing a lot better. Now it sounds like we are. But what were seeing, at least in our community, is that people are making AC right before they transfer or theyre hitting their four years at their unit and not AC yet. Right. So maybe they get an extension or maybe they transfer, not an ac. So that probably makes your pool of candidates for second tour folks, like a little bit more shallow. [00:44:38] Speaker D: It does, yeah. And I mean, it's not a problem unique to hitron. You know, I think that's unfortunately becoming more of the norm. But it's because of those shortfalls we've had. We're kind of trying to catch up at the same time, the fleet's aging and we're doing these transition. We're doing a lot of things right now, and we're asking a lot more of those, the junior pilots, the first tour pilots. And I think that that's one of the big things. That's, uh, that's the aversion to coming to Hitron. Right. You spend the entirety of those four years, maybe even longer, trying to make aircraft commander in the SAR world. And then we're asking you to give that up, come to a community with a different mission that is kind of the unknown. We don't advertise it a whole lot for, for kind of some, some good reasons, but then we're asking you to come do that and kind of start all over. Right. Right. After you've spent four years getting that advanced SaR acquaintance. [00:45:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:23] Speaker D: At a legacy SAR unit. [00:45:24] Speaker A: That's a good point. [00:45:24] Speaker C: Yeah, we're asking bill, and I think the days of, like, when, when him and I went, came up, you know, the days of like, yo, go out to a 30 minutes pattern bouncer and then fly up and down the beach for a while, I think those are, you know, we got to be a little bit more judicious with those, those hours. You know, you got to spend more time training, really get. Yeah, get the maximum use out of it. And I'd say, you know, I challenge everybody to, you know, I tell us a lot to our deploying crews. You know, when you start out, you're going to have a bubble that, you know, bubble of both proficiency and safety. You know, don't pop it, but expand it, you know, put, you know, push the limits. Don't push beyond your limits. [00:45:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:56] Speaker C: So just help yourself grow, and that's the way you can. I think if I had, if I had really maximized mine every flight hour and every minute of the flight, that I could or, you know, a greater degree, I'd be a lot better pilot than I am now. And that's kind of what we need now. [00:46:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Another thing that I've heard. So we have, you know, we have a decent amount of folks who are serving in different communities like army or Marine Corps, who listen here, looking at applying for the DCA program, and I remember we've had, it wasn't too long ago we had one of our designation students come through, and he was a direct commission aviator, came through the designation course and then went straight to your unit. [00:46:31] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:46:32] Speaker A: So is that becoming more common, too? [00:46:34] Speaker D: Yeah, I'll throw a name drop here. So, Matt Van Jinkel. Van G. If, you know, him, he was that last DCA and I want to say ten to twelve years ago, direct into Hitron. Right. We kind of, we paused on that just because we had to throughput it from the fleet to kind of come through and fill those bills at Hitch on. And we just started that up probably about a year and a half ago. We've had a guy, Brian Harding, come in Apache DCA, first tour. And he was kind of our, he was our test case. Right. Can we do this? We haven't done in a while? What does it look like? And he's kind of paved that way on what that training plan looks like. We just had Brandon Pearson come, Army pilot, first tour in the coast Guard was Navy flight school. So we call him Kurt Lazarus, you know, like a dude playing dude playing a dude. And he's here now. Just got through, first pilot gonna make him queue and we're gonna deploy him pretty soon. And we just, we've got another one in the pipeline and then we've got one more showing up. So that is a way that we're trying to change what that, you know, what the composition and what that experience looks like at Hitron is thinking differently about it. Right? [00:47:32] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. [00:47:32] Speaker D: You've got to do it right with the right people and we screen them. [00:47:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:36] Speaker D: But it's worked out so far and those guys are awesome. They love it. It's a, it's a mission where I think we're going to have to kick him out of Hitron here when it comes time for them to transfer because they're going to want to stay. [00:47:48] Speaker A: I was going to say after doing that mission for a couple of years and if your prior experience is not search and rescue, you might not want to go do search and rescue anymore, you know what I mean? Which is the opposite of how other folks might feel about it. [00:48:00] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a fun shot. I went from Traverse City doing basic sar to doing the run of the Milsar Kodiak where you're doing something a little bit more extreme. And then, you know, next flying tour, Hitron, you know, it's a challenge. But I think also as well, we've got, we've got Navy and we've got Marine Corps. We got one of our pilots, Josh King, he's a prior Osprey pilot, you know, loves it being the coast Guard now. He's, you know, he's doing super well. You know, he went to a unit prior, but he's here doing great things. So it's, I think if you ask anybody, the DCAs, they all, they all love the coast Guard, and I think they're, they're happy they made the choice. [00:48:34] Speaker D: They bring a different way of thinking, right. About how we fly, about how we do things just from a different perspective. And I think that diversity of thought and especially this mission and what we're asking her to do is hugely valuable. [00:48:45] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks for sharing all that stuff, gentlemen. I think this was a great conversation. Hopefully our listeners got a good amount of kind of like what, you know, Hitron is and what you guys do with the full understanding that obviously you can't talk about everything, right. That the mission has to offer. But what we like to do as we start wrapping up these podcasts is offer up some time to share some words of wisdom or lessons learned before we part ways. [00:49:14] Speaker D: Yeah, sorry to put you on the spot. Yeah, no, that's good. I think my words of wisdom would be, I think we do a really good job on the coast guard at kind of quantifying risk and looking at risk and discussing that and making a plan based on that risk. I think we could do a better job on the gain side, right. Because we know when we walk out the door what the risks are. That may change a little bit during the flight. I dont think we reassess gain kind of the same fidelity were doing risk during a flight. Other on scene assets. Hey, whats the gain in a counter drug case given x, Y and Z MPA coverage where the boats at? We focus on that risk. And I think thats good. Thats what were trained to do, that risk gain calculation. We need to kind of put a little bit more thought on that, on that gain side. [00:50:02] Speaker A: I like that. The first thing that actually came to mind was launching for an uncorrelated mayday. [00:50:07] Speaker D: In just garbage weather. [00:50:10] Speaker A: And you're like, what are we doing here? And you fully understand what the risks are, but you're like, well, I know that gains, I mean, sure it could be high, right? You know what I mean? There could be someone out there. [00:50:20] Speaker D: You run out to think, I'm going to voice somebody, save their life. [00:50:22] Speaker A: This could be garbage, too. [00:50:23] Speaker C: It could be smiling at the you're going after. [00:50:25] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [00:50:27] Speaker D: Traverse city talking. [00:50:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:50:29] Speaker C: On my end. You know, I think I know that. Well, there's a lot of folks out there and I, especially in recent years, a lot of folks are looking, you know, grass is green on the other side. Job market's great. Folks are looking to get on it. You know, to me, I love what I do. I love the people I work with, it's an awesome job. And if I could do it all over again, start over as an incident, I'd do it. There are a lot of ways when you're 90 years old, there's a lot of ways you're going to measure the value of your life and what you've done, what you've accomplished. You know, for some folks, that's money. For some folks, that's how much real estate have I accumulated or how many Instagram followers do I have? For me, it's the meaning, the impact of what we do, whether, you know, hit run's not going to be for everybody and not everybody's going to go there, but whether you're pulling drugs off the street, whether you're saving lives, the job that coast Guard aviation does has an enormous impact. And I would challenge you to find a job elsewhere where you, you have that same level of satisfaction. [00:51:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:19] Speaker C: So I love that. [00:51:20] Speaker A: You know, sometimes it's easy to kind of like, lose perspective sometimes, and then like, but once you get it back, you're like, like, we do some good stuff. We really do. Whether it's, you know, basically blowing out boat motors. Right, with the 50 cal or, um, you know, plucking somebody out of the water like that is some good work that I think we take for granted sometimes. Um, that I, I'm sure that the, the nation certainly appreciates. [00:51:41] Speaker C: Yeah, I've, I've hoisted kids and I've also set, sit there and seen, uh, $76 million in drugs sitting on deck that we just shot the engines out on. [00:51:49] Speaker A: Yep. [00:51:49] Speaker C: Both of them are really good feelings. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:51:54] Speaker D: The reason why you saw that is he's got all day interdictions at night. I can't see it under daytime. [00:52:00] Speaker C: You know, as far as my pace. You got it. You got a three year head start on me. [00:52:04] Speaker D: There we go. [00:52:04] Speaker A: Oh, one last thing, and I've been telling students this, but HUD usage is a requirement at Hitron, correct? [00:52:13] Speaker D: Absolutely. [00:52:13] Speaker A: And I think that's the only unit that currently requires it. But, you know, we train people up here at ATC and get them schooled up so they can, you know, operate it and then, but we also say, hey, look, when you get back to your unit, you know, it's up to you whether you want to continue or not. But at Hitron, it's a, it's a requirement. [00:52:28] Speaker D: It is. And it's a game changer. [00:52:30] Speaker B: Right. [00:52:30] Speaker D: Especially if you were at a unit where you're in a dry suit, you got all the gear on. It's one more thing, right? [00:52:34] Speaker A: Yep. [00:52:35] Speaker D: And the mission and the profiles. You're flying at night, to be able to keep your eyes on the target without looking in, without, you know, having that scan coming back in the cockpit, it makes all the difference because you're doing that at 35 to 50 to 75ft over the water at night. [00:52:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:49] Speaker D: 45 degrees angle bank. [00:52:51] Speaker A: I love that. I want to get to a point where I can actually use the HUD properly like that. [00:52:54] Speaker C: I'd say technique only is I started null pat, but what I did, I just, I dumbed it down to just one. One piece of data in my. In my vision, I had it down low. So if I saw it and I kind of. I would rely on it a little bit. And then after I got comfortable with that, I'd add in the second piece and then, you know, keep building it in. So, you know, now I've got, you know, five or six pieces of information in there, but start with one. If it's work your way, work your way into it. [00:53:15] Speaker D: And it's been a while since I instructed, but last time I did it, you know, was in the delta. And what I would do is take guys around. You have the hud on, you've got your full instrument lighting in the scan. Next pattern, I turn it down a little bit and after three or four, I turn their instrument lighting all the way down. It's forcing them to look through that Hud. [00:53:30] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:53:31] Speaker D: I'd love to say I know what that looks like in the Echo, but. [00:53:35] Speaker A: The HUD image hasn't changed a whole lot, to be honest. [00:53:37] Speaker D: Oh, no, no, I meant, you know, turning down mFD because you got to force yourself to look through the Hud. Right? Yeah. You're used to looking through the goggles, looking out, but then you have to kind of focus that back in and out. [00:53:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:49] Speaker D: Without cheating and looking back in. [00:53:51] Speaker A: I would traditional entrance my problem. I look at the imagery and then forget to look beyond it and I'm like, oh, gosh. Okay. [00:53:57] Speaker C: It does, it takes time. [00:53:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:59] Speaker C: Once you get to it, it's. You get that blended view. It's awesome. [00:54:03] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, really enjoyed the conversation today. Thanks for joining us while you're here at the PCO PXO course and all that. And please come on by next time and chat with us again. [00:54:13] Speaker D: Yeah, thanks, Nick. Thanks. [00:54:15] Speaker C: Yeah, appreciate it. Yeah, you guys been awesome. [00:54:16] Speaker A: Max. Thanks. Max. Had to leave early, everybody. Time for a brief. So anyways, told him you should do. [00:54:22] Speaker C: It on the podcast. [00:54:23] Speaker A: I know. Right? Bring him on here. Ask him questions. That won't make anyone nervous. [00:54:27] Speaker B: No, not at all. [00:54:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Awesome. Thanks again, guys. [00:54:30] Speaker D: Appreciate it.