Stop or Start a War… Flexible Deterrent Options (FDOs)
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the seventieth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast. This one is going to be a little different. For a long time I've contemplated doing TWO podcasts; the current Lessons from the Cockpit on aviation and another called On the Nation's DIME, looking at current events around the world analysed using The DIME. DIME is an acronymn for Diplomatic, Informational, Military and Economic... the elements of national power our government uses to analyse how powerful or weak a nation state or organization is absed on those four elements. Our government also uses the DIME as a...
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Tailhook 23 Report
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the sixty-ninth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! I'm your host Mark Hasara, former US Air Force KC-135 pilot and author of the book Tanker Pilot, now on the Air Mobility Command Leadership Library reading list of General Mike Minihan! This past weekend I attended the Tailhook Association's 2023 convention at the Nugget Resort in Sparks, Nevada as a guest of Admiral Bill Gortney. I was asked to be part of the Operation Iraqi Freedom panel on Friday afternoon discussing the air refueling plan for the Shock and Awe campaign. This podcast episode discusses events and...
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Flying Phantoms with Iranian Air Force Colonel Fred Izadseta
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the sixty-eighth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast with your host, retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and KC-135 pilot Mark Hasara. Ever since hearing and reading this story, I wanted to have this incredible Iranian Air Force fighter pilot on the show! has commanded at all levels; from Squadron to Wing Commander. He's flown some of the most iconic fighters in the world... F-86 Sabers with the Iranian Precision Demonstration Team Golden Crown to commanding an Air Wing, and teaching in their pilot pipeline. What will strike you most about his lessons learned...
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Shock and Awe Tanker Shortfalls
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome back to the Lessons from the Cockpit and the sixty-seventh episode of the podcast! In preparation for attending the Tailhook 2023 symposium, I felt this was a good time to do an episode on the air refueling shortfalls during the Shock and Awe air campaign in March through April 2003. In my book Tanker Pilot, the chapter Six Weeks in Hell speaks to the issues the Air Refueling Control Team overcame to make the 1003 Victor war plan executable. This is a more in-depth discussion on refueling shortfalls compared to what was accomplished in Desert Storm based on the Gulf War Airpower...
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Sluggo's Current Reading List
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the sixty-fifth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! I received word this week my book Tanker Pilot: Lessons from the Cockpit is now on the four-star commander of Air Mobility Command General Mike Minihan's "Leadership Library" reading list under the heading We Are the Maneuver. I'm grateful and humbled General Minihan thinks enough of my book to be included on his first published list. In February of last year, I gave my listeners a reading list of great books in the episode called "Book of the Month Club". This episode updates my reading list based on some of the...
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Battle Management with Colonel Mark "Boner" Waite
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the sixty-fourth episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! I am your host Mark Hasara, Air Force vet and KC-135 pilot. Colonel Mark Waite took a very interesting route to fill one of the most critical positions in the Air Force as Airborne Battle Manager, surveilling the air over a battlefield and directing fighters and bombers to targets. Boner was a Senior Director in the E-3 AWACS on the opening night of Desert Storm. He's a graduate of the US Air Force's Weapons School and later an instructor in the Command and Control division. Some of his most interesting lessons...
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Centennial of Air Refueling
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the sixty-third episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! I'm your host Mark Hasara, retired KC-135 pilot and veteran of four wars. On Tuesday 27 June 2023, the Air Force celebrated a 100-year anniversary. On 27 June 1923 was an event making aviation history! For the first time, fuel was transferred from one DeHavilland DH-4B Biplane to another DH-4B Biplane flown by Captain Lowell Smith and 1Lt John Richter over Rockwell Field on North Island near San Diego California. 1Lt Virgil Hine and 1Lt Frank Siefert flew the DH-4B tanker which John Richter had reconfigured with a...
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The Nerve Center of Air Mobility
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the sixty-third episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit Podcast! I'm your host Mark Hasara, a retired KC-135 pilot of the United States Air Force. After five fantastic years and the greatest flying assignment of my career at Kadena Air Base on the island of Okinawa Japan, it was time for an assignment change of station or PCS. I took a Headquarters assignment to a location all of us in the Young Tiger Tanker Squadron laughed at because they had absolute control over all air mobility operations around the world except us at the 909th! This assignment became one of those tremendous...
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Desert Storm Tanker Lessons Learned
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the sixty-second episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast and I'm your host Mark Hasara, a former Air Force KC-135 pilot, flying all over the world passing gas! Recently I had a conversation with a colleague on how far the Air Force tanker community had come since Deseet Stomr and the old Strategic Air Command days of the Single Integrated Operations Plan, the nuclear war plan. I felt the tanker community during Desert Storm was not prepared for high-density, high-ops-tempo air refueling operations because it wasn't our primary focus. This episode lays out what I feel are the...
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DoD Budget and Retiring Aircraft
Lessons From The Cockpit
Welcome to the sixty-first episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! The Defense Department Budget is out and there are a number of aircraft coming into the inventory and a lot going to the Boneyard at Davis Monthan AFB Arizona. Platforms that I refueled from my KC-135 are going to be gone soon, and I voice my concerns about some of the aircraft being cut out of the inventory. My biggest concern is the health of the tanker fleet of course. There are some new aircraft on the horizon also and some of them are cosmic! This episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast is supported...
info_outlineWelcome to the fifty-seventh episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast! This episode is an anniversary episode.
This past week marked twenty years since the opening of Operation Iraqi Freedom's Shock and Awe air campaign, a term those of us involved never used. To those planning and executing air operations, it was Air Tasking Order Oscar or ATO O. The Combined Air Operations Center Air Refueling Control Team which I led went through six weeks of hell preparing for the opening A-Day and H-Hour, Friday night 21 March 2003 at 9 pm local Baghdad time. In this episode, you will hear the background stories of how the air refueling team got to that Friday night air schwacking of Iraq, from Friday 14 March to what you saw a week later on all the news media on 21 March. It looked like everything was going smoothly but no, it wasn't. The tanker force was not in place until Sunday 23 March.
This episode of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast is sponsored by the book Tanker Pilot: Lessons from the Cockpit found in all four formats; hardback, softback, Kindle, and Audible. Thirty-two pictures taken during events described in the book are contained in the pages, some taken by the author and some taken by the receivers.
Prints of aircraft participating in the opening night of Iraqi Freedom can be found at Wall Pilot, custom aviation art for the walls of your home, office, or hanger. These are four, six, or eight-foot-long aircraft profiles printed on vinyl which can be peeled off or framed and placed on any flat surface.
The F-15E Strike Eagle was tasked to support Close Air Support to the Third Infantry Division in their march to Baghdad. This F-15E carries the weapons load normally used on such CAS missions.
The F-16CJ Wild Weasel took part in the Suppression of Enemy Air Defense (SEAD) and the Destruction of Enemy Air Defenses on the opening night when the Baghdad Super Missile Engagement Zone had to be destroyed.
The F-16CJs were supported in their mission by the RC-135 Rivet Joint, an electronic intelligence collection platform used to identify, classify, and locate Saddam's SAM systems.
The E-3B Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System or AWACS was the Air Battlefield Manger platform for Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Air Mobility Command KC-10 Extender was critical to the air refueling system for Operation Iraqi Freedom because they could refuel both Boom or Drogue-equipped aircraft and were air refuelable, allowing the KC-10 to be filled up during flight.
Go by my Lt Col Mark Hasara TikTok page to see short 15 to 30-second aviation and military videos that educate and entertain. Some are pretty incredible!
Thanks to all of my listeners for downloading this and previous episodes of the podcast. I really do appreciate it! This and previous episodes of the Lessons from the Cockpit podcast can be found on my website at markhasara.com