So There I Was

RePete opens the show and a call with Sticks about buying an airplane. Apparently, Sticks needed an airplane-shaped hole in his finances! Before that, two quick health check-ins: Fig is nursing an eye injury (prescription: beach time, not flight time). Meanwhile, Bago is recovering from a pathologic knee fracture, mistaken for arthritis for weeks. Good news — the lesion’s benign, and he’ll be back producing the show soon.

Then things get properly ridiculous. Naval aviator “Vegas” (aka Lieutenant Jones) joins the show. First there’s a reference to a sword salute in his Dress Blues behind a hangar… the full story about that can be heard in our “Blues Brothers Episode 90” then takes the opportunity to relive his Harrier ejection over the Neuse River. During a training hop at VMAT-203, an electronic fuel control failure sparked two engine fires on approach. Buck’s play-by-play (“Vegas, you’re on fire, eject, eject…”) barely finished before Vegas was through the canopy. He landed on a golf course, no green fees required.

Finally, Porky swings by to reminisce about the last public USMC Harrier demo. The guys wrap up with “Get Better Fig.” Thanks to One Skin and DC Artworks for keeping the lights (and occasionally the jets) on.

Fig was involved in a serious crash on Thursday - 16 July. A Short update on his condition.

Putty talks Camp Bastion Attack in Sept of 2012, Lawman describes the most legitimate ejection ever made and Candyman talks traffic tickets in a war zone!

Marine Corps aviator Maui (call sign Cobra-31) joins RePete and Fig for stories spanning three decades of naval aviation: serving under Colonel Don Conroy — the real-life inspiration for The Great Santini — flying Huey gunships out of Marble Mountain, a hair-raising New Year's Eve medevac, training Iranian pilots before the Tehran evacuation, and flying CH-46s in Desert Storm.

In Episode 218 of So There I Was, Fig & RePete bring listeners two stories recorded live at the Harrier Sundown gathering in North Carolina. First up is “Monster,” one of the earliest Marine aviators selected for the AV-8B Harrier program back in 1984. He recounts the chaos of being handed the first-ever heavyweight VSTOL launch off an LPH — no computers, no test pilot, just a junior lieutenant, a hazy horizon, and a velocity vector that refused to move. Monster also shares the bookend of his career: selected first to fly the Harrier, and years later, the Marine to retire the Corps’ last A-4.

Next, “Rizzo” takes listeners to Fallujah and Al-Amariyah during the height of the Iraq War. What started as a routine night of illumination runs turned into a low-altitude gun run that blew straight through the 2,000-foot floor — down to 60 feet, right in the alley. The story closes two decades later, when one of the kids who scavenged his spent shell casings tracked him down on Facebook and sent them back as shot glasses.

Two pilots, two eras, one wild ride!