Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: And then I got hired to go into a black operations organization where I did seven combat deployments supporting elite tier one teams. You know, some of the things that we did over the course of my time there, they've made a few movies about. And for me, I got to work with some of the most amazing people that the planet has ever known.
Welcome to Hangar X Studios, where former fighter pilot and host John Ramstead takes us on a journey across aerospace as it enters an historic period of innovation and transformation.
Our guests include aviation experts, pilots, financiers, military leaders, and innovators of all types.
Buckle up for another episode of Hangar X.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Hey, welcome to the Hangar X podcast, where we're talking about the future of aviation. And today, our incredible special guest is Lieutenant Colonel Jason Harris. So, Jason, welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Thanks so much. It's good to be here with you, John.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Jason, after this incredible career that you had, both as a combat pilot flying C130s special forces, aviation, doing some incredible stuff, most of which you probably can't even talk about, the really cool stuff, and you've developed this incredible platform on no fail trust. And I think it's so important right now as the economy and the world is changing, but also the aviation industry, especially with what's happened recently with the faa, is transforming radically. And I think aviation, aerospace is going to be. We're going to see it and look at it completely differently. In five years out, I'd love for you to share some of those principles about no fail trust and how you developed them and why you think they're so important, not only today, but moving into the future.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: My background is pretty interesting. I'm that kid that I got kicked out of school not once, but twice. Got since alternative school.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: So second grade was the two hardest years of your life?
[00:01:58] Speaker A: No, actually, I got kicked out of school in sixth grade and in seventh grade by the same principal.
And so the interesting thing is what I tell people is that I'm number two of my mother's six children, the product of three marriages and four fathers to her six children. And I grew up in the inner city streets of Oakland, California. And so growing up in Oakland, California, I saw a lot of things that kids shouldn't see. And thankfully, my mom, she joined the army when she was almost 30 years old to get us out of that environment, to give us a fighting chance. And so that same principle that kicked me out of school not once but twice, she was a catalyst. You know, they say a picture's worth a thousand words. Well, for me, that Picture that she showed me was worth a lifetime.
My principal, she showed me a picture of her son Paul, who was a cadet of the Air Force Academy. And I looked at that picture and he looked like the picture of success. He was in his dress uniform. He was sitting in his room, bed nicely neatly made. And I said, I'm going to go there. I have no idea what she thought about me saying that, but it was imprinted in my mind. Fast forward. I go to the Air Force Academy, graduate. It was a struggle, barely graduated, but I made it out as, you know. What do they call the first number one graduate? Lieutenant. What do they call the last graduate? Lieutenant.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Thank goodness.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: And so I was the beneficiary of that too.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Right. You know, and so I graduate, I go to pilot training.
Once I completed pilot training, I go to Little Rock Air Force Base to learn how to fly the C130 and fly. Learn how to fly C130, become a co pilot. And then 2005, I go back, and now I'm back to be an aircraft commander.
I'm walking down the streets on Little Rock Air Force Base. And back when my eyes are really good, I look over, I'm going to salute this major. I'm a young captain, I go to salute this major and I see the name tag and I'm like, there is no way.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Oh, man, I just got goosebumps.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: I still get goosebumps every time I tell the story. It was Paul Trujillo in the flesh. And so I see him and I look and I go, there's no way. So I go, hey. I go, sir, are you Paul and is your mom? And he looks and he's like, yeah, yeah. Like, why, kid? Like what? And I go, your picture.
I saw your picture. And the craziest thing is that I was standing in front of the picture. I was standing in front of him. And we were both Air Force Academy graduates, and we were both C130 pilots. And so that changed my life. And so I had a very successful, Fun career flying C130s. I did four deployments there, flying in that environment. And then I got hired to go into a black operations organization where I did seven combat deployments supporting elite tier one teams. You know, some of the things that we did over the course of my time there, they've made a few movies about. And for me, I got to work with some of the most amazing people that the planet has ever known. And then after that, I was fortunate to go back, teach at the Air Force Academy and I held a bunch of different jobs. And what I tell people is I'm a jack of all, master of jack squat, because I never did the same thing twice in my career. I've done stuff in the space environment, and then I've done stuff in the staff environment, supporting defense or civil civil operations like disaster relief, things of that nature. And then the culmination of my military career, which was pretty awesome, was I was able to be a squadron commander for a Boeing KC46 tanker squadron. I had never flown tanker aircraft in my life. I had never received fuel because I never flew aircraft that could receive fuel. And now I was training to not only be at a pass fuel to other aircraft, but to receive fuel. Imagine a 767 aircraft pulling up to the back end of another 767 aircraft, and your feet, you're inches away from being able to cause a major catastrophe. And the craziest thing about this is the innovative technology, right? And you had this young boom operator up there who's controlling the entire show, and you had to trust them. And so that was amazing to be, to be able to do that particular job. But most importantly of that job was having the honor and the privilege of leading young airmen that raised their hand and volunteered to serve this nation. And for them to look to me for guidance and for me to be able to provide that guidance for me to be able to show them the mistakes that I've made throughout my career and to be able to lead them in a way that I'm proud of. That my mom and the enlisted members of my family, me being a fourth generation military member, that all the enlisted members of my family, I'm confident that they would be proud of how I led those young enlisted members as well as the officers in my command.
When it comes to trust, a lot of times people say, just trust me. And the reality is that I can't trust you. But then when you think about this idea of the flying public, they go to airports all the time, and they walk onto an airplane that has these massive engines and all of this technology, hundreds of buttons in the cockpits of these aircraft, and they trust us as pilots, as professionals to do our job. What is it that we are doing and how is it that we can actually garner the trust of the public? Well, a big piece of that is, is because of our training. And so no fail, trust is really built on these three principles. It starts with training. You got to have trusted training. Without trusted training, you can't get to the next step, which is trusted Processes, you're you as a pilot, you know what it's like. You got to go through the training, you got to learn the systems, everything it takes to fly the airplane. But that's not enough because I need you to also follow the processes, those checklists, the standard operating procedures. Make sure that you do it right every single time. And once you have trusted training and trusted processes in place, it's only then that we can empower and trust those pilots and trust our people to go out there and execute the mission. And as you're talking about the innovation and technology, the innovation in the aerospace industry, those things are going to be even more important. And so when I talk about training and processes, it's not just flying the airplanes, it's every aspect of it. From building the airplanes, from managing and maintaining the airplanes, to those that are actually doing the logistics side of the of the business, to those are actually flying the airplanes. That is how we get to those high performance teams that I've had the privilege of working with throughout the course of my career.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: Now, when you're think about that from an entrepreneurial perspective, right, it's not like an established company where we're trying to take a proven process and improve it. We're actually creating the training, we're creating the processes as we're going. So what's your advice on actually some thoughts on how to do that better?
[00:08:32] Speaker A: Well, if you're creating something from the ground up, obviously there is no training program in place, there is no processes. And so you're having to create that on the fly. You know, as we say in aviation, you're building the plane as you fly it. And in that space, in the entrepreneurial world, one of the things that we have to keep in mind is we have to understand that we can move at a fast, innovative pace. But as we're doing that, we have to ensure that we're documenting what we're doing. We have to ensure that as we're building this plane, as we're making these rapid, innovative things happen that we're also tracking. How do we train people to be able to replicate this down the road? When I talk about training and I talk about processes, what's important, especially in this context of what you're asking, is that we have to grab the information, be able to articulate the information, and be able to put it in a manner in which somebody can read the manual to understand how to replicate that, how to do it for themselves. And if I can do it, then how do I train you how to do it. And then how do I train 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 other people how to do that mission, how to do that job, how to do that project? If we can't do that, then we're going to be missing a lot. And while we're innovating and moving at a fast pace forward, we're not going to have the ability to recreate that. And so that becomes extremely important for those entrepreneurs that are in the innovation and technologically in the tech advancement space. You have to capture the data, you have to capture what you did and you have to be able to apply it in a step by step manner. And you have to have the capability to be able to replicate that, to be, to do it again or do something as similar as possible so that you can harness what you've learned on that fast paced innovation journey.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Now, on the surface, it seems like there can be a tension between standardization, capturing this data, creating process and checklist, and innovation. I know you've talked about how it actually can be an accelerator to innovation. Can you say more about that?
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it can definitely be an accelerator to innovation because what you get is you have the people that are actually doing the work, the people that are moving very fast, and those people will continue to move very fast and move forward. But I need to have that long tail of an organization to be able to understand what was done. I need to have them to understand how did we get to this point and how do we make this piece happen to then contribute to making the next piece happen. And so while it might not be that particular person or that team that's doing all the innovation, we have to actually surround them with other people that can capture the information, that can then put it in a way, articulate it in a way on paper so that the other people can understand what they actually did. I mean, if you make an innovative engine, I need to have the ability to show the people that are going to maintain that engine, how to maintain that engine, how to work on that engine. But if we just say, hey, we got this great new product and no one understands the intricate details, then that's going to create a slowdown later. And this is what I call this whole mindset of stepping over dollars for dimes. And the reason I say stepping over dollars for dimes is because what happens is while you're looking out forward saying, man, we're doing all these innovative things and it's going really great and that's fantastic, but it's going to cost you a lot more when you have to come back and start back at square one to figure out, well, how did we build this? How did we get from point A to point Z? And if you have no documentation of that, then that's going to really slow you down in the long run. And so we have to be willing to understand, while that team can move fast, you better have the ability to articulate what they're doing in the moment so that we can then understand how they did it.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: So it sounds like there's a big mindset difference between maybe a company who's stepping over those dollars to get the diamonds and the ones that are not. So with the people that you've worked with and consulted with, how would you frame what that mindset is and the differences we could learn from?
[00:12:26] Speaker A: The one word that I would use that mindset would be investment.
And the reason I say investment is because what happens often is I'll talk to a client and I'll give them the examples from our military background. You know, you and I, we both went through some type of basic training or boot camp, and then from there we went to pilot training to get our wings, and then from there we went to learn how to fly another airplane. And we had all this training.
And while we're in training, when you look at it from a business perspective, you're not making money.
However, when they put us into those airplanes that cost millions of dollars, we screw it up. How much is that going to cost us? So now, if you go all the way back to the beginning.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: Well, in addition to our lives.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: Well, of course our lives. I mean, those matter too, right?
[00:13:10] Speaker B: 30, 40, 50 million bucks a pop, right? Plus, think about all the replacement training costs.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: Bingo.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: And there's a multiplier on the cost.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: It's an infinite multiplier. And not to mention, if you take that back to a company and you start talking about the same concept in the company, while they say, well, we don't have the budget, and we don't have an unlimited budget like the government does, so we can't afford to do a basic training, and we can't afford to do these long bouts of training like you guys in the military can. And I look at them and I says, well, you can't afford not to, because what's going to ultimately happen is they're going to rush through getting people through this training. They're going to do it halfway, and then what's going to end up happening is their whole environment, their whole culture, and everything else they're doing is going to become fubar look up that definition, right? But that's what's going to happen. It's going to be fubar. It's going to be a total Charlie Fox trot. And when that all happens, then they go back and go, man, we lost way more money than if we would have just spent the money and made the investment up front. And so that's what I encourage people to do, is don't get lost in the idea that this is going to be a significant investment to train your people up front. When we go in the military, you probably still remember the core values of the Navy. I still remember the core values of the Air Force because that was ingrained in me from the beginning. That was part of the culture that was level setting culture as part of our basic training. And then we learned a common language that we spoke. We learned common things that allowed us to communicate with each other in a way that when we needed to actually go fast, we could go fast together. And we can go far and fast together.
[00:14:48] Speaker B: And that communication was always in alignment with our values. And when it got out of alignment, somebody called you on it.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Bingo. And what's happening is organizations, they don't have that common language. They don't have the capability to communicate and communicate rapidly. They don't have the ability to actually say, here is how we deal with the challenging problems. Here's how we have the tough conversation. Think about it. When we get done flying a mission, we sit down and we do a debrief every time. Every time and without exclusion. Absolutely. And in that debrief, think about this.
While we might get our feelings hurt, we have learned how to get over those hurt feelings very quickly. And we've learned that the reason for that debrief is so that we can fix what we did wrong, so that we can submit what we did right. And we can repeat that and not repeat the things that we did wrong. And we also have a method and a manner in which we connect and communicate with each other so that we can call those things out, so that we can then also share that with everyone else. Like, hey, guys, guess what I did today? I did something really stupid. Sorry, didn't break anything. Could have, but it didn't. But I want to make sure that you don't go out and make this exact same mistake that I did today.
[00:16:01] Speaker B: Or you get called out and say, hey, Ramstead, you did something really stupid. Right? And let's learn from that, but don't do it again.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: And we've been taught what to own it. And you Move on. But what's happening in a lot of organizations is they don't have the medium to make that happen. And they don't have.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: They're not even comfortable giving feedback.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: Absolutely. They're not comfortable giving feedback. They're not comfortable having the hard conversations. And so now when you start thinking about this idea of innovation, there are a lot of hard conversations that have to happen in innovation because you might have some of the smartest people in the room. And while you're sitting there with the smartest people in the room, it doesn't mean they're infallible, it doesn't mean they can't make a mistake. And there might be somebody who might not have the same level of technical proficiency and the degrees that this very smart, innovative thinker has. However, they're able to see something that that innovative thinker can't see. And if we haven't created the culture that allows us to have those tough conversations, that allows us to have those debriefs, then we miss the opportunity to fix the problem now, where it costs us a lot less time and a lot less money than if we allow that to go forward. And then before you know it, we've produced an entire platform, we've produced an entire product, only to realize that there was somebody who saw that two years.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: Ago, two years ago. And it just makes me think, when I think about strategic thinking, most people don't really understand what is real strategy, three, five year strategy. But then linking that strategic planning down to daily execution, right? The values are fundamental. Right? Then what's your vision, mission purpose? You got to link that to your goals and then you have strategies and action plans. That's how you keep things in alignment. Now in the military, something that we all focused on that was critically important is commander's intent. From that commanding officer down to the most junior airman or sailor. Can you talk about how important that communication is and what it really looks like in a high performing. Whether you're an entrepreneur, entrepreneurial company, building an aircraft like this large organization, or even in your family, you know, the.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: Idea of commander's intent is so important. I'm glad you brought that up because oftentimes and organizations like when I'm working with certain clients, I realize that they don't understand the concept of commander's intent. And because they don't understand it, their people have no idea what's going on. And one of the things that I learned a long time ago this is in the absence of information, people will create a story every time and so what ends up happening is the commander didn't provide their intent, the leader, the CEO and the C suite of that organization. They didn't provide their intent, they didn't provide their guidance. And because they didn't do that, people are making up a story. And now that we've missed this critical piece of communication, no one knows what we're really doing. And when we don't know what we're really doing, what ends up happening is, number one, they start creating a story. Number two, the younger people, the newer people, they start looking to the veterans in the organization. And if the veterans in the organization become disgruntled, what message are they going to send to the younger, newer people in the organization? And then from there, what has happened, we've lost all ability to communicate effectively and we lost all ability to have people aligned on one goal, one objective, and the overarching mission and vision of the organization.
And when you lose that, that destroys your organizational culture from the inside out.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: It does. Cause what you're talking about, there is something that comes in, it corrodes trust. Trust gets lower. There's ambiguity. How do we make decisions? We don't know how to deal with conflict. We're not calling each other. So in that. And I'd love your thoughts too, think about whatever organization you're at. However, you'd rank yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, like 10 is the most trusted organization I've ever been in. One, like, why am I here? But I'm a simple guy, so I like thinking about what's a plus one. Maybe you're a six or a seven or a nine. But what are some things that you're seeing that I can raise that level of trust so I can move toward, no fail trust, not only in my organization, because when I have it internally, it's going to then go out and the public, our customers, our vendors are. They're going to be like, there's something special about that group.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: The biggest thing that I would say to do that, to just raise the level of trust internally in an organization, is creating psychological safety.
You know, I talk a lot about the culture, but part of the culture is psychological safety. And what I mean by that is this ability to be able to speak up, this ability to be able to say something and offer a perspective and not be worried or concerned about being humiliated, being talked down to or being shut down. Right. You've likely been in a situation before, John, where you've had somebody or you've seen where everyone is sitting at the table in a debrief or possibly a pre brief or some kind of meeting. And someone says, hey, I got something to add. And then they look over at them and somebody pulls out the proverbial double barrel shotgun and they blow their head off. Poof. Brain matter and blood misses all on the walls. And then what happens? That person, from then on, what do they do? They shut up. They stop talking. And then what else happens? Everyone around the table, they look and they see the brain matter going everywhere. And they're like, cool. I don't want my head to get blown off, so I'm not going to say anything.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: Actually, I want to go update my resume.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Right.
And now you have destroyed all ability to build trust.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: And so that can even be with a word or even just a look at somebody.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: Absolutely. It's the simplest things. And so I encourage leaders in organizations to create a psychologically safe environment. You know, for us. We talked about that debrief piece. We talked about like being able to own your mistake and being able to feel comfortable getting called out, being able to feel comfortable calling someone else out. And it's not that we're belittling each other in the debrief. We're just saying, hey, this is what happened. And we also create that safe space where I can raise my hand and go, hey, let me tell you what I screwed up. No one saw it, but it could have caused a problem.
Now imagine how many people are in organizations where they don't have that level of comfort and they're seeing where the engine is just not going to work. They're seeing where something is going to go horribly wrong. They're seeing the train wreck happen a mile and a half, two miles before it ever happens. But they're afraid to speak up because they don't have psychological safety.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: So I got to tell you this. One of my clients, they got about 300 employees. They have the Kelly Clarkson Award that they give every month that her song what Doesn't Kill youl Makes yous Stronger. And whoever admits the biggest mistake, even something that could have been a fatal flaw for the company, they actually go up and talk about their mistake and it's celebrated by the team. And then they're like, what did we learn from that? So next time we can be a little gooder.
Isn't that great?
[00:22:53] Speaker A: I absolutely love that. You know, I heard somebody tell me, and I've kind of stolen and started using it. When it comes to this idea of exactly what you're talking about, a lot of times what you Hear is the person goes, what were you thinking? That was the dumbest thing ever.
Now imagine if instead of that, you says, hey, what'd you learn, John?
Number one, how does that make you feel? Number two, how are you going to process that? Number three, what is that going to make you do in terms of your level of commitment to that person, that leader, that organization where, you know, you have the permission to fail and fail forward, and you have the permission to get up and learn from it and not be ridiculed because you made a mistake. And sometimes people say that was the stupidest thing and it's the simplest mistake. And now you just shut down, probably one of your A players, and now they go sit off in the corner and they stop contributing.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: You know, I'll never forget, you know, the, my former commanding officer who you worked with in Iraq and the Special Forces, when you guys were doing the whole some really cool aviation stuff, I did something really stupid and it was known by the squadron, and he pulled me aside. You know what he said? He goes, hey, Rammer, what in that whole mess, is there anything you did? Well, he started pointing out actually a couple things that I actually did well. And then he, he asked me what we learned so you don't do it again.
[00:24:20] Speaker A: Bingo.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: And I got to tell you, to this day, 35 years later, he's probably one of the most guys I have the most respect for because he was trying to help me improve versus he easily could have made me the butt of, oh, about 100 jokes at that point.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: Absolutely. And that's what a good leader does, and that's how you create that culture and that's how you start getting better. Because you got to think about the question you led with for this part of the conversation. It is how do we do things better internally to build trust that then garners trust from our clients, that then makes people look at us as a world class organization.
And if you don't start internally and if you don't build that kind of culture internally, then that's going to show to your clients. They're going to see that you guys are not in alignment with each other. They're going to see that if you can't trust each other, how is your client, can I trust you all to get the job done for me? Because you guys can't even get along within your own building, your own offices, why would I want to do business with you? And people miss that. And so a lot of times what I'll see is an organization or a particular person that has a title. They'll be so focused on pleasing the client, not realizing you can never truly please the client because your team isn't behind you. And a good client, an astute client, they could sniff that out in a heartbeat. And when they sniff out dissension in the ranks, the likelihood of them wanting to work with you gets lower and lower.
[00:25:48] Speaker B: It does. I always tell my team, you know what, you know that saying, the customer is always right, so to speak. So, no, I tell my team, right. The customer is not always right, but they are always the customer. And I'm putting my people ahead of the customer and the customer's needs. And I think if people know, we call it in the military, top cover. When people. When you know your. Your leadership has your back and they're going to help you, and we're going to get through this together versus just pleasing a customer, that is a team that's going to stay together. We're actually talking about it at lunch. This younger generation tends to job hop when there's a pay raise. One of my nieces, I think she's on her seventh job in 10 years. Each one was a pay raise.
Why did you leave each job? Because she never felt like she was part of a team that valued her. She never felt like she had friends at work, and she didn't feel like her boss truly cared about her as a person in her development. So why wouldn't you leave?
[00:26:44] Speaker A: Absolutely. I was. I was. I was on set filming for one of the TV shows I did recently, and we were at a sulfur plant. Doesn't actually stink as bad as you think. And I was sitting in the trailer while they were grabbing B roll, and I saw this young man, and so he was doing some training on the computer. And so I sparked up a conversation with him, and I says, hey, man, tell me a little bit about what you do here. He says, oh, you know, I'm doing this and this, and. And I said, well, how long you been here and where were you at before? And ultimately, what he told me is he was at another company, and then he got offered a job to make more money, but he chose the company that he was currently with. And I said, well, why'd you choose this company over another one that where you could have made more money?
He says, man, when I got here, number one, they welcomed me. He says, day one, the senior leader, it might have been like the president of that company came down to shake his hand and says, welcome to the company. Welcome to the family. And he says, and then from there, he says he started talking to his direct supervisors, letting them know, hey, I'm excited about being here. I'm excited about being on this team. These are some of my aspirations. I would love to be a supervisor. I would love to rise in the ranks. And he says the comparison was the previous company that he was with. And the previous company, people would shut him down and says, oh, no, just stay in your place, don't worry about that, and just literally shut him down. He says, in this new company, they said, cool, we'll assign you a mentor and we will begin to help you to attain those aspirations that you're going after. And he says he then got offered a couple of other opportunities to go and make more money. And he chose to stay at that company because he had already been at a company where he knew he could make a lot of money, but he wasn't part of a family, he wasn't welcome, he didn't feel valued. And so when we understand that a lot of times there's a threshold of money that we need to make to make us comfortable. But then once we get past that threshold, it's not about so much as the money as it is how we're made to feel within that organization. And if we don't have people that feel valued, they will chase the dollar. You know, I mean, in the big scheme of things, a dollar an hour, how much difference is that going to make? For some, it can make a significant difference, which I totally understand. But when we're really getting down to it, a lot of times we have to look at how do we make people feel valued. And that goes a lot further than an additional quarter, a dollar an hour, when you make someone feel valued. Yeah.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: And Gallup came out with some research recently. When people feel valued and they feel like they're in a high trust environment, productivity goes up 54%. Innovation is 36%.
Days that you take off, like six days is 12% less than other companies who self report. So, you know, I'd love to talk about this as we wrap up because we might even have to have you back on. I think talk about more about some of the aviation. But being part of a team that came together, special forces, flying missions, critically important, everybody's got to do their job. You got guys downrange that literally are their lives are depending on you guys executing.
You have to come together quickly, develop high performance teams, solve problems rapidly. What are some things that you learned, I think, from that 10 years of your career that you've brought into Today.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: That environment is extremely special. And what amazed me when I got into that space was to your point, how we value trust and how we value the ability to trust somebody based on what team they were on. You know, imagine there were times that I would show up to do a mission and I would never have met that team or that person I was talking to on the radio a day in my life. But I knew by their call sign who they were. And then sometimes I would get to know who they know their voice. If I worked with them multiple times and we understood how they trained, and when we understood how they trained, we understood that we can trust what they were telling us to do in the middle of the night. You know, imagine landing somewhere that you've never landed before. Imagine a dirt strip, side of a mountain, dry lake bed, you name it. Two lane highway in the middle of nowhere, and you've never been there before. And when the person on the other end of that radio says you're cleared to land, you trust them to do that. Well, what you realize is that we were working with these high performance individuals, these high performance teams, and we knew that if you were actually a qualified member of that team, that the level of training that you went through, the level of scrutiny and the level of assessments to validate that you were able to be put out in the field, you already had an understanding. So you went in with a level of trust and respect and regard for those individuals on the other end. That was far higher than if you work with another team that you knew didn't have that level of training. And so that gave me an appreciation for the type of training you do. The other thing in that environment is a lot of times in special operations, people thought that we were cowboys, for example.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: You are, aren't you?
[00:31:45] Speaker A: A little bit. You know, I rode a few horses in my time, but, you know, so in aviation, right, they talk to us about this idea that, you know, if you lose an airplane on takeoff, you lose an engine on takeoff. What do they tell us to do? The Cardinal said is what you can't do. 180 degree turnaround, right? You've always been taught that. Actually that's wrong, that's incorrect. Now we don't allow most people to do that. And the reason we don't is because most people have no idea how to do it safely. So we had a mission going on and it was a pretty, pretty high profile mission, high stakes. So we knew that it was going to be one way in, one way out. So me and one of the other instructor pilots, we said, hey, let's go out here and let's test this theory out. Okay? First off, that just sounds absolutely crazy. So we took this airplane, pretty, pretty decent sized little airplane, and we said, we're going to come off the Runway, we're going to get to 200ft and we're going to simulate losing an engine. Once we simulate losing that engine, then we're going to attempt to make a 180 degree turn back to the Runway. Now, what we did that most people didn't realize while they're watching this happen is we briefed all of this on the ground. We planned all of this out before we ever got in the airplane to fly it. And we set our parameters. Okay? If at this point, at 45 degrees left, 45 degrees right, if we're at this altitude, then we're going to abort this experiment. We're going to add power back to the airplane. We're going to climb away from the ground and get to a safe altitude and clean our underwear up and then figure out what we did wrong. Right? Well, interestingly enough, we take off the Runway, we come off, get 200ft. We simulate losing the engine at that point. Now your speed is not increasing. You can't climb as rapidly. And we do the standard thing that we're taught to do. You trade air speed for altitude. So we then climbed up a little bit. We knew we were right above the stall speed, and we start making a coordinated turn back to the Runway. Instead of making an immediate turn back to the Runway like most people do out of fear.
[00:33:28] Speaker B: Right?
[00:33:29] Speaker A: Right. We've already controlled for that variable. Now we made a controlled, coordinated turn back to the Runway, like a whiff of deal maneuver. Turns out we actually had excess energy before we touched down on that Runway. And we actually touched down, so you.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Had to float a little bit.
[00:33:43] Speaker A: We actually floated down the Runway a bit because we had excess energy. Here was the thing that I realized in us doing that experiment. One, people thought we were cowboys because they didn't know the planning that went into it. Two, when we thought through everything that we were going to do, what we did was we evaluated everything that could go wrong. We evaluated everything that we wanted to happen, and we evaluated the things that could cause us to harm ourselves, the things that could cause that airplane to fall out of the sky. And once we evaluated that, then we were willing to take that chance, that risk, because it was an extremely calculated risk. And what I learned throughout that, and working with some of these other high performance teams is that we learned how to take calculated risk. Most people say, I'm going to take a risk, but it's exactly that. It is a risk that they know nothing about, that there is nothing calculated about it whatsoever. And they find themselves in a bad situation, getting themselves hurt.
But when you are in an environment with high performance people that you have to get things done, you learn how to take calculated risk. And when you learn how to take a calculated risk, that's where you begin to find innovation. That's where you begin to figure out how to really excel at a high speed. And so that's just one of the many lessons that I learned in working with these high performance people over the course of my career in special operations. I mean, the thing.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: Don't you think to be able to take a calculated risk, you need to be a master of your craft? You need to be operating at a level of excellence. And I think that's even a personal challenge for all of us, whether it's leadership, technically, communications, casting, vision, how we're making decisions, how we're giving feedback, just how we're operating across multiple divisions. I mean, just looking at, you know, building the aircraft that we're building, the complexity and there's so many components to it, you need a whole bunch of people that are absolutely masters at what they do. Because then you can have those conversations and debate and challenge each other. Absolutely. Because. And I can do that because I trust you. So maybe you challenge me. And I know it's. You're not doing it to make yourself look better. You're doing it to try to get the team to the best decision possible. Very different, very different perspectives.
[00:35:49] Speaker A: I agree 100% with you, John. The idea of being, when you are an expert in your craft, you know, me and that other instructor pilot, we can go out there and do that because we were both very, very proficient at flying that airplane. We had already, max performed that airplane. We had already done things that we had scared ourselves. We had already figured out how to keep ourselves out of trouble. And we were practicing every day. Right when we were working with those teams, you know, some of the most elite special operations teams, we knew that when they were practicing before they ever did the mission, that they practiced so much that they could do it in their sleep. That's why when that controller, when that combat controller in the middle of the night says, you're cleared to land, I know that they have already run across the drop zone or the landing zone. I know that they've cleared any signs that were might have been on the sides of those roads. I know that they've measured everything out. I know that the lights are precisely in the right place, because we practice that over and over and over. And when you are an expert in your craft, to your point, you can show up and do the job. And when you're an expert in your craft and you work with other experts in the craft, while we challenge each other, what we're not doing is saying, you don't know what you're doing. We challenge each other to say, I know you can get a little bit better, and I'm going to challenge you. Or maybe did you think about this? Because I see it from this perspective, even though I don't do your job. But maybe my perspective allows you to find that extra little bit of oomph or that extra bit of innovation to make this mission happen. But when you're working with people that aren't experts in their craft, you don't have the ability to trust them in the level that you know that they're going to be to execute no matter what. Because you're questioning, well, did you go to the range today? When's the last time you actually sighted your weapon in how many rounds have you put downrange? Hey, how many times have you landed that airplane? How many hours you got in that airplane? How many landings have you done on this kind of terrain?
And if I have any of those questions or any of those doubts, my ability to trust you will go down exponentially.
[00:37:49] Speaker B: Well, let's do this as we land the plane, so to speak. Okay.
You know, we were talking about earlier, just with everything that's been happening, an entire new category of aircraft is now being developed by a number of companies, not only here in the US by us, but also globally. What are some of your, you know, just kind of thinking about this conversation. What are some final thoughts you have for those teams, those companies, the investors, the vendors, this entire ecosystem that's focusing on, actually, I believe, a movement that really could transform aviation.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: You know, first off, what I love to see when I see these new innovations coming about is that the future is now here. And so what I want people to be thinking about is to step outside of the mindset of this is how we've always done it. I mean, you think about, I fly the Boeing 777 airplane. It is a phenomenal platform. I look at that platform as the Cadillac Escalate XL of the sky has all the bells and whistles. But think about this. That airplane is like old, old Technology.
And so now, when you step outside of this idea of that's how we've always done it, now you can appreciate the beauty in what's now. Now you can actually appreciate and harness the innovations that are in front of us and step outside of the box. Actually, the idea of stepping outside of the box, I actually don't believe in it. I think that is actually, that theory doesn't make sense. And here's why it doesn't make sense. And this is what I want.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: You know why? Because we always crawl back in the box. Because it's our comfort zone.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: Not even that. I'm gonna give you one better, John. Well, I agree with you. Because a lot of people do. They do crawl back into the box. I'm gonna give you one better. And this is what I want investors and people that are in the innovation tech space to be thinking about. I want you to think about blowing up the box.
Here's why I want you to blow up the box. Because when you think outside the box, what that means is you're still holding onto that box. As you're holding onto that box, that' reference point. And if you use that airplane that you've always known about that, that normal flying airplane as your reference point, you think outside the box and you'll say, well, we'll just move the engines around.
We'll just use different kinds of engines, because that's the box. And we went outside the box and we did something different. No, when you blow up the box, you're no longer tethered to the idea of what we've always done. You're no longer tethered to the idea of what is existing currently. You now can start with a blank slate. And when you start with a blank slate, that's when you can really start innovating and harnessing what is currently now, what used to be the future and what is to come in the future with all the innovations that are happening in this space.
[00:40:29] Speaker B: I love that, man. What a great way to land. Blow up the box. Don't be tethered to what's been done in the past, because it's going to limit the future.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:40:39] Speaker B: That's the money shot.
Lieutenant Colonel Jason Harris, extraordinaire. Thank you for being here, man. This has been great.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: Thank you, brother. It's an absolute pleasure to be here and hang out with you for a little bit.
[00:40:49] Speaker B: All right?
