Name: Mark Smith on What It's Like to Be a Fighter Pilot
Uploaded: 2021-02-03T00:23:17.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Mark Smith on What It's Like to Be a Fighter Pilot' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-02-03. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Mark Smith on What It's Like to Be a Fighter Pilot' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-02-03. Transcript available.

the Joe Rogan experience I got a text from Pete Spratt the OG and Pete Spratt
let me know about your background like I did not know you were a fighter pilot
I
did not know that you did you work at Area 51? I cannot confirm or deny that I
worked at Nellis Air Force Base which is okay in that general vicinity so so
you
can't talk about like experimental shit or anything like that you know what I
did the first thing I did it at Nellis was when I flew in the Thunderbirds
right
and then I went away for a couple assignments and then when I came back I
was an aggressor and if you remember in the movie Top Gun you know Viper and
all
those guys are when the camouflage planes they acted as the enemy forces and
trained blue horse before they go off to combat that's what I did the second
time
around so the Nellis Rangers are probably up in that general vicinity but as
far as
being someone that worked at that now I worked at Nellis Air Force Base oh we
flew in that okay in that general area I don't believe you I think you're lying
now now I think you're holding back you guys did you feel it Jamie all of a
sudden
he's like smiling I don't know the answers of the question you guys don't
want guys in dark suits and shades to come in here and be like Mr. Smith we
need it I already talked to those dudes they're good guys they're just trying
to
protect us from the aliens you know the crazy thing is in that area when people
used to think they would see UFOs and stuff like that you know there's a book
that came out a couple years ago called Red Eagles that explained a lot of that
stuff going on what they thought were UFOs or you know transportation planes
that were landing at some of the bases and stuff up there yeah a lot of people
see wacky shit yeah the first time I ever saw a stealth bomber I was it I was
filming fear factor in Palmdale which is near was it Edwards right by Edwards
yeah
yeah and I saw a stealth bomber flying overhead I swear to god I thought it was
Darth Vader when you see one of those things in real life you would think
especially if you didn't know that the United States is developing one of those
like when they were first developing them and flying them before they made it
public that thing looks like it's from another world so it's funny you say that
so when I was on Thunderbirds we do incentive rise for like media
personalities and other people and I was out at our training area which is over
Death Valley and we're talking to the Navy controllers and they come over and
say
you know I was Thunderbird 2 T-bird 2 I need you to fly straight and level for
five minutes there's gonna be aircraft off your nose I need you to you know
diverge to the right and stay away from it I'm like what in the world is this
so
I threw my radar out there which is snag anything out there and I'm getting
these intermittent hits I go I don't see anything on the radar next thing you
know
I look up and I go what the shit is that and I look up and it's a B2 that has
you
know an escort plane right next to it that comes right next I looked at it for
the
first time and I go there's there aliens out here this is that thing yeah I
mean
look at that that does not look like it's from here yep that absolutely looks
like it's from another world yeah like all those when people talk about seeing
those triangular spacecrafts in the sky I mean maybe some of them are from
another
planet yeah so if you've never seen one of those and like for me as a pilot
perspective I've never seen anything like that you know you hear about the F117
plane from the Gulf War and then you see this big thing coming towards you and
that's what everybody always reports to a triangular object with like a light
on
each corner I mean that is a stealth bomber yep that's a crazy-looking
aircraft man yeah so I had somebody in my backseat that was like oh my god what
is
that what is that thing coming by I mean if we thought that we were being
invaded and then you saw things like that flying overhead that that is what I
would imagine they would be flying they came from another planet that thing is
out at
whiteman air force base you know you see it flying out there all the time so
there are folks here in a local area that I see it taking off and there's some
new ones that they haven't released yet I don't know so I retired about eight
years ago right I heard a crazy story one day that someone was hunting up in
Montana and saw something similar to that that he had never seen before that
like came out of the ground and like a vertical type thing and it took off
which
you know the F35 and planes like that will take off some of them in a
vertical stance and then go forward but to see something that size and that
skill do
something like that it kind of makes me wish I was still in the military just
so
you be in the know that's right what so which one can do that and take off and
F 35
yeah so there's a couple variants so the Air Force one does traditional rolling
takeoff but the marine one you know it's almost like a Harrier so the the back
engine will rotate so it'll take our vertical and then as it's going forward
the
engine will rotate back the other way to give it forward propulsion but man
just
technology wise the stuff that we're flying now so I will tell you this the
first time I fought on the range against the f-22 Raptor and I fought against
everything in the world so out at Nellis with the aggressors everybody comes
there to train to get prepared for combat there's no better plane in the world
than the f-22 when that thing passed me and some of the stuff that I saw it
could
do I go there's no better plane in the world so as far as air superiority f-22
is at
the top of the food chain what is the difference it's f-22 is primarily air
superiority you know so like air-to-air dog fighting long-range short-range
missiles f-35 is you know command and control platform it still has weapons on
it can drop bombs shoot missiles etc but the role is a little bit different so
yeah that's f-22 you go to air show and see that thing you like is that a plane
or
helicopter with some of the stuff that it does but fighting against that you
know
as a fighter pilot your average fighter pilot is the cockiest person that you
will ever meet in the world just like top gun exactly that's all real we're
better than
everybody that's our philosophy but it's gonna have to have that philosophy
yeah I
mean look at that look at that that's insane oh my god that's insane it just
shoots straight up in the sky yep oh my god I mean it doesn't even look like a
real a real plane that that is a mean machine right there so I got friends that
fly that plane and you know you see it a it's designed in combat you know the
United States is still gonna be at the top of the food chain as far as the the
personnel that we have the men and women that fly these airplanes and then the
equipment that we're flying you're not gonna find anything to match it that's
incredible that turn that it just made in the sky so there's that what the
maneuverability of it is that what's superior look at what the fuck that's
insane so thrust vectoring on the back you know plus the flight controls I mean
look he just flat-plated that and the amount of thrust is coming out of it so
you know internal avionics the stealth capability and the maneuverability of it
nothing the world is gonna be that but they can't fly very long right you know
it's it's a total package so whenever you go to combat or something you're
gonna
have tanker support out there so you're gonna meet a you know a air refueler up
at
20,000 feet and get gas nothing can carry external fuel tanks but the goal is
to be
able to plan a mission to be able to go in escort have guys drop your bombs or
do
whatever and get back out with tanker support you know there's always that
philosophy without the gas you know no one is gonna go so like when I was in
Iraq and stuff we take off in Saudi Arabia fly our up meet a tanker go fly a
five-hour mission come back to the tanker get more gas go out and fly for
another couple hours and then go back to the base how long can that fly for you
know I don't know it obviously depends on how hard you got the gas right down
right I think in the f-16 if we stayed in full afterburner for you know five
minutes you
probably run out of gas five minutes or it could be quicker than that now the
goal is
endurance you obviously want to be able to stay out there to maintain the yeah
go the
length of your mission but you look at the length of the mission and fuel
capacity and
the goal is obviously to have somebody there as a backup because you never want
to be out
there by yourself you always want to have that support you know so you may have
guys that are sitting back here in a cap waiting for their turn to come in you
run
out of gas up front now you swap out those guys come back in so total
protection so
until they come up with something superior to internal combustion engines we're
always going to be limited by the amount of fuel that they can carry exactly
just
because of the weight right so as far as endurance yes now capabilities of the
plane most fighter
planes have a G capability of nine G's and that's you know times a force of
gravity do
you wear a G suit we did wear a G suit so in a fourth generation like an F-15 F-16
is
a fourth generation fighter we wore G suits on the abdomen and down on the legs
and basically
what that does as you pull G's you're going against gravity and blood starts to
drain from your
brain down into your lower extremities so the G suit is just a capability to
help counter it
it's really a tightening restriction of your muscles starting with your calves
hamstrings buttocks all
the way up and we do the cooking yeah that's really to hold the oxygen in and
what that does is lock
everything down to hopefully hold the blood up in your brain as long as
possible I told you I flew with
the blue angels once and when I did that I I got to seven and a half G's before
I couldn't take it
anymore so did you start to gray out or yeah I started tunnel vision yeah it
was like an elevator door was
closing yeah and you know I'm doing that so it's weird because people think it's
you know two G's would
be one greater than one three G's is one greater than two but when you start to
get above five it's not a plus one it's
exponential oh so when you start to get to seven oh six is ten oh yeah that's
what it feels like yeah and
you can't explain how it feels but nine G's is absolutely I mean you get back
home that night and
from straining and everything you know measles what it looks like little we
call them jesles where your
blood vessels will actually start to pop oh wow and you get these little specks
on from straining so hard
that you're popping blood vessels but the goal is obviously not to fall asleep
we call it fall asleep in
airplane g loss of consciousness a g lock is what it's called if you do that
and you're in the air
it may take you 30 seconds to a minute to be able to come back to any kind of
capacity and if that
happens you know majority of time it's going to be catastrophic i uh made it
through that and then i
blacked out on the way back because i didn't hook on the way back because i
thought i got cocky i thought
we're good and we made a hard turn and i think i blacked out at like five like
four and a half or five
wasn't even that much compared to seven and a half yeah if you're not ready at
four and you know
people like oh i can do g's you get on a roller coaster that's like a half a g
or one g i blacked
out and i threw up it was double embarrassing did they make you wear a g-suit
no no g-suit see the
reason they don't wear a g-suit is because in close formation if you wear a g-suit
the g-suit is going
to fill with air to help with that restriction on your legs and in the f18 they
have a center control stick
and they rest their arm on their right leg and if that g-suit is moving up and
down it's going to
move your control stick oh i see so the f16 has a side stick controller where
it doesn't touch your
leg at all i mean it's like you're reclined back in the seat in the side stick
controller so we can
wear a g-suit so it won't affect precision you know moving your arm back and
forth is there any other
technology that they've invented to deal with gravity like that just the sheer
force of the acceleration so
not just a g-suit but you will have induced pressure breathing you know so you
wear a specific kind of
oxygen mask and that's going to force air into your system because the one
thing you would hate to do
is just hold your breath it's like a three second count you know you do that
hook and then it's a
three second count exhale inhale right quick and as part of that pressure
breathing would you exhale
and open your mouth it's going to force air back in with that pressure
breathing system
so with the two of those together and then we combine it with you've got to be
in shape
you know you got to lift weights you got to have some kind of cardio
conditioning to be able to last
because it's one thing to be strong enough to hold that you know g position but
then you do a 45 minute
you know dog fighting mission your body's going to get tired so you got to be
able to sustain that
the entire time so most fighter pilots are going to lift weights they're going
to do you know extreme
cardio exercises to be able to sustain but anything else other than that it's
kind of weird back in the day
it would be go drink a coke and a bag of doritos and get that sugar rush for
that 45 minute flight
and be able to sustain through it really it's more of a health conscious uh
thing now you know the total
pack is staying in shape i guess they're just smarter now about it probably a
lot the blue angel
guy that i flew with was a tank and the dude was swole he was like yoel romero
he was jacked
you know that was philosophy because when i was on the team i'm six one i
probably weighed 230 235
that's large for a fighter pilot right the the cockpit was extremely tight
usually they're smaller guys
because because is that a thing with the the gravity it's easier to sustain
gravity it is a it's a height
limitation so you can't be so tall where your head is up against the top of the
canopy oh that's all it
is but you also can't be that short where you can't see over the dashboard but
there's a weight limitation
too you know you can't be below a minimum weight because if you ever had to
eject and you're below
let's say 125 pounds that parachute is going to drag you you won't be able to
stop or if you're above you
know whatever the weight is 250 265 you're going to come down in that parachute
pretty hard you're
probably going to get hurt yeah they can't make custom for you nope no and it's
the same basic
fighter so the thunderbirds it's a you know it's a frontline fighter that they
take some of they take
the gun out and they put a smoke barrel in it but it's the same basic avionics
the same basic controls
and it's just painted red white and blue and all the professionals that are the
maintenance guys for the
thunderbirds the best in the world the finest in the world and i had four of
the finest when i was on the
team they take them off of active duty lines and bring them nellis air force
base and do all the
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Mark Smith on What It's Like to Be a Fighter Pilot

the Joe Rogan experience I got a text from Pete Spratt the OG and Pete Spratt
let me know about your background like I did not know you were a fighter pilot
I
did not know that you did you work at Area 51? I cannot confirm or deny that I
worked at Nellis Air Force Base which is okay in that general vicinity so so
you
can't talk about like experimental shit or anything like that you know what I
did the first thing I did it at Nellis was when I flew in the Thunderbirds
right
and then I went away for a couple assignments and then when I came back I
was an aggressor and if you remember in the movie Top Gun you know Viper and
all
those guys are when the camouflage planes they acted as the enemy forces and
trained blue horse before they go off to combat that's what I did the second
time
around so the Nellis Rangers are probably up in that general vicinity but as
far as
being someone that worked at that now I worked at Nellis Air Force Base oh we
flew in that okay in that general area I don't believe you I think you're lying
now now I think you're holding back you guys did you feel it Jamie all of a
sudden
he's like smiling I don't know the answers of the question you guys don't
want guys in dark suits and shades to come in here and be like Mr. Smith we
need it I already talked to those dudes they're good guys they're just trying
to
protect us from the aliens you know the crazy thing is in that area when people
used to think they would see UFOs and stuff like that you know there's a book
that came out a couple years ago called Red Eagles that explained a lot of that
stuff going on what they thought were UFOs or you know transportation planes
that were landing at some of the bases and stuff up there yeah a lot of people
see wacky shit yeah the first time I ever saw a stealth bomber I was it I was
filming fear factor in Palmdale which is near was it Edwards right by Edwards
yeah
yeah and I saw a stealth bomber flying overhead I swear to god I thought it was
Darth Vader when you see one of those things in real life you would think
especially if you didn't know that the United States is developing one of those
like when they were first developing them and flying them before they made it
public that thing looks like it's from another world so it's funny you say that
so when I was on Thunderbirds we do incentive rise for like media
personalities and other people and I was out at our training area which is over
Death Valley and we're talking to the Navy controllers and they come over and
say
you know I was Thunderbird 2 T-bird 2 I need you to fly straight and level for
five minutes there's gonna be aircraft off your nose I need you to you know
diverge to the right and stay away from it I'm like what in the world is this
so
I threw my radar out there which is snag anything out there and I'm getting
these intermittent hits I go I don't see anything on the radar next thing you
know
I look up and I go what the shit is that and I look up and it's a B2 that has
you
know an escort plane right next to it that comes right next I looked at it for
the
first time and I go there's there aliens out here this is that thing yeah I
mean
look at that that does not look like it's from here yep that absolutely looks
like it's from another world yeah like all those when people talk about seeing
those triangular spacecrafts in the sky I mean maybe some of them are from
another
planet yeah so if you've never seen one of those and like for me as a pilot
perspective I've never seen anything like that you know you hear about the F117
plane from the Gulf War and then you see this big thing coming towards you and
that's what everybody always reports to a triangular object with like a light
on
each corner I mean that is a stealth bomber yep that's a crazy-looking
aircraft man yeah so I had somebody in my backseat that was like oh my god what
is
that what is that thing coming by I mean if we thought that we were being
invaded and then you saw things like that flying overhead that that is what I
would imagine they would be flying they came from another planet that thing is
out at
whiteman air force base you know you see it flying out there all the time so
there are folks here in a local area that I see it taking off and there's some
new ones that they haven't released yet I don't know so I retired about eight
years ago right I heard a crazy story one day that someone was hunting up in
Montana and saw something similar to that that he had never seen before that
like came out of the ground and like a vertical type thing and it took off
which
you know the F35 and planes like that will take off some of them in a
vertical stance and then go forward but to see something that size and that
skill do
something like that it kind of makes me wish I was still in the military just
so
you be in the know that's right what so which one can do that and take off and
F 35
yeah so there's a couple variants so the Air Force one does traditional rolling
takeoff but the marine one you know it's almost like a Harrier so the the back
engine will rotate so it'll take our vertical and then as it's going forward
the
engine will rotate back the other way to give it forward propulsion but man
just
technology wise the stuff that we're flying now so I will tell you this the
first time I fought on the range against the f-22 Raptor and I fought against
everything in the world so out at Nellis with the aggressors everybody comes
there to train to get prepared for combat there's no better plane in the world
than the f-22 when that thing passed me and some of the stuff that I saw it
could
do I go there's no better plane in the world so as far as air superiority f-22
is at
the top of the food chain what is the difference it's f-22 is primarily air
superiority you know so like air-to-air dog fighting long-range short-range
missiles f-35 is you know command and control platform it still has weapons on
it can drop bombs shoot missiles etc but the role is a little bit different so
yeah that's f-22 you go to air show and see that thing you like is that a plane
or
helicopter with some of the stuff that it does but fighting against that you
know
as a fighter pilot your average fighter pilot is the cockiest person that you
will ever meet in the world just like top gun exactly that's all real we're
better than
everybody that's our philosophy but it's gonna have to have that philosophy
yeah I
mean look at that look at that that's insane oh my god that's insane it just
shoots straight up in the sky yep oh my god I mean it doesn't even look like a
real a real plane that that is a mean machine right there so I got friends that
fly that plane and you know you see it a it's designed in combat you know the
United States is still gonna be at the top of the food chain as far as the the
personnel that we have the men and women that fly these airplanes and then the
equipment that we're flying you're not gonna find anything to match it that's
incredible that turn that it just made in the sky so there's that what the
maneuverability of it is that what's superior look at what the fuck that's
insane so thrust vectoring on the back you know plus the flight controls I mean
look he just flat-plated that and the amount of thrust is coming out of it so
you know internal avionics the stealth capability and the maneuverability of it
nothing the world is gonna be that but they can't fly very long right you know
it's it's a total package so whenever you go to combat or something you're
gonna
have tanker support out there so you're gonna meet a you know a air refueler up
at
20,000 feet and get gas nothing can carry external fuel tanks but the goal is
to be
able to plan a mission to be able to go in escort have guys drop your bombs or
do
whatever and get back out with tanker support you know there's always that
philosophy without the gas you know no one is gonna go so like when I was in
Iraq and stuff we take off in Saudi Arabia fly our up meet a tanker go fly a
five-hour mission come back to the tanker get more gas go out and fly for
another couple hours and then go back to the base how long can that fly for you
know I don't know it obviously depends on how hard you got the gas right down
right I think in the f-16 if we stayed in full afterburner for you know five
minutes you
probably run out of gas five minutes or it could be quicker than that now the
goal is
endurance you obviously want to be able to stay out there to maintain the yeah
go the
length of your mission but you look at the length of the mission and fuel
capacity and
the goal is obviously to have somebody there as a backup because you never want
to be out
there by yourself you always want to have that support you know so you may have
guys that are sitting back here in a cap waiting for their turn to come in you
run
out of gas up front now you swap out those guys come back in so total
protection so
until they come up with something superior to internal combustion engines we're
always going to be limited by the amount of fuel that they can carry exactly
just
because of the weight right so as far as endurance yes now capabilities of the
plane most fighter
planes have a G capability of nine G's and that's you know times a force of
gravity do
you wear a G suit we did wear a G suit so in a fourth generation like an F-15 F-16
is
a fourth generation fighter we wore G suits on the abdomen and down on the legs
and basically
what that does as you pull G's you're going against gravity and blood starts to
drain from your
brain down into your lower extremities so the G suit is just a capability to
help counter it
it's really a tightening restriction of your muscles starting with your calves
hamstrings buttocks all
the way up and we do the cooking yeah that's really to hold the oxygen in and
what that does is lock
everything down to hopefully hold the blood up in your brain as long as
possible I told you I flew with
the blue angels once and when I did that I I got to seven and a half G's before
I couldn't take it
anymore so did you start to gray out or yeah I started tunnel vision yeah it
was like an elevator door was
closing yeah and you know I'm doing that so it's weird because people think it's
you know two G's would
be one greater than one three G's is one greater than two but when you start to
get above five it's not a plus one it's
exponential oh so when you start to get to seven oh six is ten oh yeah that's
what it feels like yeah and
you can't explain how it feels but nine G's is absolutely I mean you get back
home that night and
from straining and everything you know measles what it looks like little we
call them jesles where your
blood vessels will actually start to pop oh wow and you get these little specks
on from straining so hard
that you're popping blood vessels but the goal is obviously not to fall asleep
we call it fall asleep in
airplane g loss of consciousness a g lock is what it's called if you do that
and you're in the air
it may take you 30 seconds to a minute to be able to come back to any kind of
capacity and if that
happens you know majority of time it's going to be catastrophic i uh made it
through that and then i
blacked out on the way back because i didn't hook on the way back because i
thought i got cocky i thought
we're good and we made a hard turn and i think i blacked out at like five like
four and a half or five
wasn't even that much compared to seven and a half yeah if you're not ready at
four and you know
people like oh i can do g's you get on a roller coaster that's like a half a g
or one g i blacked
out and i threw up it was double embarrassing did they make you wear a g-suit
no no g-suit see the
reason they don't wear a g-suit is because in close formation if you wear a g-suit
the g-suit is going
to fill with air to help with that restriction on your legs and in the f18 they
have a center control stick
and they rest their arm on their right leg and if that g-suit is moving up and
down it's going to
