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Tyson Popplestone is a Comedian from Melbourne Australia. Join him for a brand new interview each week.
00:00 - Tyson (Host)
There we go. Yes, sweet. Well, I was. Um, it's actually funny because usually I record these on Zoom, so it's cool to have a live one going for everyone listening. So Mark and I are currently sitting up at Falls Creek. We're on day two of a running camp. Um, got a couple of trails. You just got back from lunch. Your, your wife's been on a mission herself riding through trails.
00:21
I was out for breakfast with Mark this morning and for ages I've known about your background Since we first met, known about your background, obviously in the, the Air Force, and just hearing you talk about it is constantly like a it, just sort of it. It peaks my peaks, my interest a little bit. There's something about the world of flying planes and pilots in general, but I feel like ease to perk up a little bit around you guys. But I thought maybe, as a way of introduction, you're going to be able to introduce what it was that you actually did better than I am, and so, like to kickstart the actual conversation, maybe you could give us a little bit of an overview of what your role was, what it was you were doing and, um, yeah, when you finished up.
00:58 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, certainly so. Um, Air Force flying was always a love of mine as a kid. I actually want to be an astronaut. When I was a kid, so my dad had a, uh, a fish smaker in the backyard which kind of had a point on the top of which is the chimney. I remember as a kid sitting in there pretending I was launching to the moon to go in this thing, Cause it looked a bit like a rocket from the outside. So I want to be an astronaut, but you know, in Australia that was probably fairly unrealistic, but I continued to have a love of flying.
01:23
Um, I left a small country town, Port Lincoln. Um, I got out of there as quick as I can, uh, went off to university, started, uh, doing a computer science degree, bombed out in my second year and then working in the computing industry. So I worked in the computing industry for about three years, uh, and started flying gliders, um, which I absolutely loved. Some of the best flying I've ever done was on gliders. But while I was there, Top Gun came out. So I was probably a product of the Top Gun era. Um, even it still got my gold framed Ray Bands I purchased as a young guy when I was, you know, probably 20 odd Um.
01:58
So I then applied to Air Force because I thought, okay, well, I should have this is something I've always wanted to do, I like, always love flying and they took me. So they said, yep, we'll give you a crack, Uh, and I then went on to pilots course and graduating in December of 88, uh, as a pilot, Um, and then I had a a number of roles in Air Force and I'm sure we'll get to those over almost a 35 year career. So I did 34 and a half years, uh, and then spent a lot of time flying C-130s, flying instructor, plus a number of roles in defense because, uh, besides the core operational roles, defense is a big machine and we had a chief of Air Force who used to call it where, basically an engineering and logistics organization that happens to fly planes, Um, but yeah, it was a fantastic 34 and a half years and I'm sure we can. I'll let you set the pace, but I'm sure we can talk about what was occurred in those 35 years. I could probably see you in talk for an hour straight.
02:55 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah, yeah, I bet I bet 35 years is plenty to talk about with the um. It's interesting. So not many Australians become astronauts. That's something I had no idea about. No, not many do.
03:05 - Mark (Host)
Um, so I think, uh, I've forgotten his name. We've had one astronaut who's spent quite a bit of time in space and on the shuttle missions, but we had none when I was dreaming about being an astronaut, uh, you know, as a young lad. So that was when I was, you know, obviously I'm kind of old. Obviously, that was when, probably almost, you know, 50 years ago, when I was dreaming about the idea of being an astronaut, and I don't know where that came from, maybe a love of science fiction, uh, watching the moon landings on a grainy black and white telly as a kid, I don't know.
03:35
So yeah, for some reason I just got in my mind about the idea of the exploration of space.
03:41 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah, are you a um? Do you delve into the conspiracy world at all? Cause I know the moon landing one is a really interesting topic for some people Like it. I feel like there's I don't know what the odds would be, but you throw the moon landing yet to some people and it's one of those ones where they go. Are you reckon it really happened?
03:55 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, of course it did. Um, you know, and I I'm also a bit of a science nerd and I was always a fan of the Big Bang Theory, and they have an episode there where they actually shine a laser off of the reflector that's on the moon, so you can actually still prove that there have been men on the moon. Um, because there is an artifact left there which was basically a reflector, which 90 degrees, so it reflects the incoming light directly back. And so, yeah, you can conduct an experiment at home shine a laser pulse on the moon and record the time it takes to come back.
04:24 - Tyson (Host)
See, this is one thing that's so interesting to me, because you hear something that sounds interesting, I'll hear like a clip on YouTube and I go, ah, so it definitely didn't happen. And then you speak to someone with a science background. They got. Let me explain to you why I believe it did. So. It would be a, it'd be an interesting conversation to see you with a couple of my mates, I reckon, because it's funny. It's one of those areas that I haven't actually really looked into at all, but I've got a couple of mates who, who love the conspiracy world, and every time I sit down with them I'd just leave going. Okay, I'm not 100% sure what's going on with anything.
04:55 - Mark (Host)
Look at the size of NASA, I mean the effort they put into that organization and I've heard it said what's the most incredible thing NASA's ever achieved? And it was actually creating NASA itself. It was a fantastic organization and I think when they put a man on the moon because it did happen, I think the average age of the NASA employee was something like it's in the mid 20s, so incredibly young organization and, you know, very obviously innovative to achieve what it did achieve. So I think you know, could you try and keep something like that secret for that long? I don't think it's possible. You know the practicality of it. It would get out.
05:27 - Tyson (Host)
It'd be. I'm terrible with secrets. I feel like I'll go home and I just get a smirk on my face, even if it's a tiny little secret. Jesse's like mate, that like that is so embarrassing that you feel so embarrassed, mind you one of the greatest secrets is Bletchley Park.
05:39 - Mark (Host)
When you consider the breaking the enigma codes during World War II, you haven't heard about Bletchley Park. No, okay, yeah, so you know. Basically, they broke the German enigma codes and it was basically under the official secrets act. I think it was 50 years. The people that were employed there couldn't talk about it and then, after 50 years and past, it came out what they had achieved in Bletchley Park, which was was an amazing story.
06:01
What was it? What's the? So it was basically Alan Turing was a big part of it, where they used mathematics to solve the encryption of the German codes, which was, incredibly, at the time, sophisticated encryption methodology, and so they used a wide range of you know, I guess, experts in the field, so linguistics, people that were good at cryptic crosswords, people that were good at chess, that good at solving puzzles, and they put together an organization that solved the German enigma codes and gave, I guess, the allies an advantage during World War II in the battle against the Axis powers.
06:41 - Tyson (Host)
Far out. Okay, so enigma code. This is going to show my lack of history around World War II, but when you say enigma code, what are we actually talking about?
06:47 - Mark (Host)
So it's basically just a way of encrypting messages. And so they basically, it was a mechanical device that would use a number of wheels, that had internal routing of electrical circuits and when you, every time you transmitted a code, it rotated, and so it was a moving cipher, and it required quite sophisticated computer, which they built, a mechanical computer. I can't remember the name of the computer they built, but there are. There is a movie, which was called the Imitation Game, about Blisley Park and solving the breaking the enigma codes.
07:23 - Tyson (Host)
Gee, what do you reckon it is that not many Australians are becoming astronauts? Is this a resource thing? Because I feel as though it's still one of those kind of career choices that when you speak to a little three year old or maybe a five year old when they're old enough to understand what it is they're talking about, it's almost that romantic dream of what they want to do. It seems like there's a big drop-off in how many five year olds talk about the idea compared to how many actually want to follow it up, compared to something like football here in Australia.
07:50 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, I guess it's. You know it's probably multiple factors. So you've got. It's probably like getting a drive in a Formula One car you can't turn up with actually a huge chunk of cash behind you. So I think you probably have to invest into the, into the system, to get a seat on one of these rides. And there's also, you know, there's the. The strategic element of it as well is that you want certain countries to participate in your, in your activity. It makes your draws to countries closer together. There's probably some very practical reasons. It's expensive, you know, if you're America obviously funding most of it. There's European Space Agency. We don't have a. We started a Space Agency but it hasn't really achieved much. So the pathway is to becoming an astronaut, I think originally with a test pilot program. Australia puts pilots on the US test pilot program to come back to Australia and be test pilots within the Air Force. But that was the natural pathway. So I think there's probably multiple, multiple barriers. Yeah.
08:44 - Tyson (Host)
So so your your entry into it was through Flying Gliders. You said yeah.
08:48 - Mark (Host)
Adelaide Union Gliding Club. We had a a strip at a place called Lock Hill which was maybe an hour and a half, two hours drive north of Adelaide, and it was this big strip which was basically carved into a barley field and so the and it didn't cost as much, so the farmer would charge us. He'd basically harvest his crop and then he would charge us a proportion of what he didn't get from that field, the area we actually occupied. So he was supporting the, the club, quite well, and so, yeah, we we had a bunch of young guys with a bit of a doled oversight Although we're adults, we probably weren't behaving like adults, but a bit of oversight from the chief flying instructor and we would go out there and spend the weekend there. We had a bit of a log cabin kit that had been built, so we'd sleep in log cabin and fly gliders for the weekend.
09:31 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah, up there for a whole weekend. Yeah, so you're sleeping in your allocated rooms and things like that.
09:35 - Mark (Host)
No, it was just a big empty room and you'd throw a mattress and a sleeping bag on the floor and kind of sleep in the clubhouse. What, what height do you get up to? Oh, we always stay below 10,000 because Is that? Meters 10,000 feet.
09:49 - Tyson (Host)
Okay, so 3000 meters, yeah, Above that you need supplemental oxygen.
09:52 - Mark (Host)
So you basically above 10,000, you then start to reduce the amount of blood oxygen, which you get hypoxic, which affects your ability to function above 10,000 feet. So when you're in an airliner your cabin attitude can get up towards 10,000 feet. That's why you might feel a little bit lightheaded. Bread goes stale quicker, Tea, your drinks go flatter quicker because you're at a higher attitude. So you would get at we'd probably. I think the highest I got as a glider pilot was about 8,000 feet thermally. But most of the flying I enjoyed was ridge-thorny. We'd basically launch off of our winch, we'd have a winch launch and then we'd turn right or left and go over to the ridge which ran north-south and we got in winter, we got westerlies, so you could fly low level up and down this ridge in a glider, which was fantastic.
10:37 - Tyson (Host)
I always look at, whenever I see a glider, like whether it's a video. I think I've only seen one or two in action. They don't seem to be something that you see around a whole lot, but when you watch it it looks like something that's just going to get blown around a little bit Like how are you actually navigating, direction, things? Because it looks from the ground or from my perspective, you just look like you're sitting in a big balloon, and anything I know about balloons it's when there's wind.
10:56 - Mark (Host)
It's just getting pushed wherever the wind is going and that's like an airplane that's moving within the air mass, so the air mass moves and you then fly within there. So you're, you know you've got forward flight, you're moving sideways, you've kind of got a bit of a drift angle. So all of our planes subjected to drift and it's just a function of how fast they're going and gliders, you know, I think, when you're around about 30 knots, when you're trying to stay aloft, but we would often, you know, get up to 80, 90 knots on a descent to come back to the field, or when you're ridge-soring, when you've got a lot of lift.
11:25 - Tyson (Host)
So how fast is that in case?
11:30 - Mark (Host)
I think we're probably talking about 160 kilometers.
11:32 - Tyson (Host)
They go that quick.
11:33 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, and faster.
11:34 - Tyson (Host)
Wow, that's so deceptive. And so your entry into the world of flying, that was step number one, essentially, had you ever done any, not gliding? But originally when you said gliding I was thinking parasailing and things like that. I often wonder whether there's any connection between people who are doing that kind of thing, an actual like entry into any form of flying because I watched that and I go okay, there has to be some kind of correlation.
11:58 - Mark (Host)
No, I haven't. I've considered it as a kind of like a flying fix, Because when I stopped flying, my wife kind of says, do you miss flying? I was like, yeah, I do, but there are so many other things kind of going on in my life at the moment that I it's, I don't have the time. I've got some friends who kind of get in touch and you go when you come and fly with this, you know. But talking about paragliding, I had a mate who was on my pilot course and maybe you should have a interview him. He was paragliding, doing cross-country, so he was basically had his paraglider, he's got GPS for navigation, he's got a variometer to find lift, and so he was doing a cross-country and a paraglider and his shoot collapsed and so he was falling and he deployed his second shoot that also collapsed and got tangled in his first shoot. So he's now free falling with some drag and he survived and he was a big bodybuilder.
12:46
This guy named Warren Hall and it's his story, so I won't tell you too much about it. But he effectively, you know, he stayed in control of his faculties and realized what was happening and he said what he did his manoeuvre onto his side and did what we call a G-strain manoeuvre. So when you're flying, you're pulling G in an aircraft, you strain with your muscles to try and retain blood in your head. And he said I did this biggest G-strain manoeuvre and he hit the ground sideways I don't know, you know, above a thousand feet or something. It was a significant height, so he was at terminal velocity, but not maximum terminal velocity, and he survived.
13:21
He had some significant injuries, some internal injuries, and he said he just felt like he just wanted to close his eyes, but he fought it and stayed conscious the whole time. He pulled out his mobile phone. He had no signal and so he could see a short rise I don't know how far away, but he then walked to the top of the rise and he had one bar and he managed to get a call out, basically to triple zero, and they eventually came and got him, but I think it was all like three hours by the time he got a rescue. So he fell from this massive altitude.
13:53
So that gave me some pause about taking a paragliding once he told me that story.
13:58 - Tyson (Host)
So okay, so he was paragliding, and so I don't understand the how did he get into a freefall from paragliding?
14:05 - Mark (Host)
Somehow it collapsed. The chute stalled, so I'm not sure how that is going. Oh, so the actual.
14:09 - Tyson (Host)
So when we're saying paragliding, we're talking about oh, that's okay.
14:13 - Mark (Host)
So so what am I?
14:15 - Tyson (Host)
talking about? I'm talking about hang gliding. Could have been what I was thinking, so I was trying to figure out. So he's falling from his hang glider, but either way, I've actually I skydived back in about 2010, and I reckon it was a one-off, it was a one-off thing.
14:28
I actually James, who you'll meet tomorrow. He gifted it to me for my 21st birthday. I went with him and looking back now, the thrill to me is not worth but it but it seems like a massive risk because on the way up, the bloke who was attached to my back it was a tandem one was just explaining to me some of the close calls that he'd had. It was like man. I would so appreciate you telling me this when we get back to the ground safely. And then since then, it's one of those things that it just captivates me. From time to time I'll jump on YouTube and I'll just go down like a cave, like a cave exploration rabbit hole, because it just terrifies me, this idea of just being claustrophobic and scared. And I watch it because it's scary. And close calls in the world of parachuting is another area that I just get sucked into and I hear about stories like you'll make Warren and I go. Okay, you know what I'm so glad I hit the ground.
15:18
I'm never doing it again. It's a. It's a wild scene, though I've got some not friends of mine but friends of friends who do it have done over like a thousand jumps. It seems to be one of those scenes that when you get the buggy you're in.
15:30 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, so I've had the opportunity to do parachuting so I've thrown out a lot of parachutes out of the back of C-130s.
15:37 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah, I think that was massive.
15:39 - Mark (Host)
So I've guys that have done both with wings so flying shoots and with the 24 foot standard one which your, your paraguay's use, which are not a big shoot. They hit the ground quite quick, had the opportunity to do a jump because we support the parachute training school down in Nara and, fortunately, because I was the captain of the aircraft, I effectively had to remain in control, in command of the aircraft, so I had an excuse to say no and it's like no, I actually don't want to do a jump out of the back in this.
16:09 - Tyson (Host)
So when they and they give.
16:10 - Mark (Host)
Air Force people the opportunity and it's generally a water jump because therefore the landing's not, so you're not going to injure yourself. And I know a lot of ex-paraguay's in Army and most of them tend to have injuries. You know it's tough on their bodies what they do and we used to use a place out near Richmond where the C-130 Air Force Base was, which was called Ricobis, and I think they liked it there because it was always water logged on, the ground was soft, so the impact wasn't so great. But yeah, I like to control the risk I'm exposed to and it could be my background with aviation safety. We risk assessed everything. You know it's always against the operational pay-up versus the risk we're exposed to. So things like bungee jumping there's no way I'm ever going to do a bungee jump or anything like that, because there are a number of factors which I have absolutely no control of or understanding of. You know so the training of the operators, you know the maintenance of their equipment, all that kind of stuff.
17:05
So I don't mind exposing myself to risk as long as I understand the risk that I'm exposing myself to.
17:10 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah, it's interesting as well because the risk, from my perspective, looks so much higher than what I imagine it probably is. But in reference to there's so many different forms of flight, I'm starting to realise that I'm getting the names muttered up. It wasn't a quite surfer. I saw a guy down at 13th Beach a while ago, so he was attached to what looked like a parachute and I don't know if he had anything attached to his back that was actually generating force or whether it was just purely the wind. But this guy, he was directing himself and he was going up one way in the coast and then he turned around and he was coming back up the other way. So was he kite surfing? It might have been, it must have been kite surfing. So it was just he had the kite, he had the wind and he was attached to it with his hands, so he was harnessing obviously, but I was watching him.
17:53
So for anyone who doesn't know, 13th Beach, essentially there's a couple of really good viewing points right near the staircases to go down to the beach, and this guy was at about almost eye level. So I'm looking down over the edge of what it's not a sheer cliff, but it's a fair drop, and he's just going past me and then past me and then I was seeing how close he was getting to the actual barrier on the side of a staircase that led down to the beach and I was thinking, man, it's amazing, it looks as though there's such little room for error that I couldn't stop watching him. I was like this can't, this can't be normal, how close he's getting to these things and at the last minute he'd come to it and then he would pull one lever and he would elevate himself and it was almost like he was just towing with the danger a little bit. So it sounds like you.
18:33 - Mark (Host)
The way you describe him. You could actually be paragliding. So kite surfers tend to use usually like a similar shaped wing, but they just use that to pull themselves across the water with a surfboard and they sometimes get some elevation. But if he's just purely flying back and forth, then he's probably what are they called paragliding.
18:49 - Tyson (Host)
Okay, yeah, yeah. So I saw that and I thought man, that's another, that's another sort of contraption in this wild world that I just had no idea about. But on our run this morning, actually, I was looking out over some of the hills and I was thinking this should be the kind of place that, if you wanted to do any of the actual hang gliding, it's a. Do you know if we get many hang gliders out in this part of the world?
19:06 - Mark (Host)
When you mentioned that, I said you know, as a glider pilot, the thing we always were aware of is where the hell are we going to land? Because a glider doesn't have an engine, so you get at any point. When you're flying around, you constantly have an awareness of what your glide radius is a cone below you that you could reach. So I imagine it's the same with any form of gliding paragliding or hang gliding. The first thing you've got to be aware of is where the hell are you going to land? And looking over this terrain here, I don't think there's many places to land.
19:32 - Tyson (Host)
I mean, it's pretty rugged, isn't it? It's spectacular, and so the landing.
19:36 - Mark (Host)
It was like you've got lots of places to launch, but you've got many places to land.
19:39 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah, maybe not the best place to take up that skill.
19:43
Yeah, it was interesting talking to you at breakfast this morning because hearing you speak about your aversion to risk or not risk but risk, that you don't know the danger of, like the elements that are behind the risk, and I asked you I was like, is there any form of fear when you step on a commercial plane?
19:57
You're like, oh no, like I've got a fairly good idea of what's going on. I would say I'm a little bit of a nervous flyer because of the fact that I have no idea what's going on, which is weird because I'll look at a. I'm still I'm 36, but I still just every now and then, if we hit bad turbulence, I'll have a look at a flight attendant who I'm sure also probably has no idea about what's going on. They've just exposed themselves to it so much that they're not so afraid of it anymore. But like, from your perspective and obviously we'll get into your personal story soon because I'm so interested to hear about your experience flying the planes but what is it in your mind that gives you such peace when you step onto a commercial airline? I know one of the things was you're very selective about the airlines that you fly with.
20:34 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, of course you know, like any industry, there are different standards and those companies perform to different standards. And I won't talk about who I'll fly with or anything like that. But the thing that does put me at ease is I'm aware of how rigorous the engineering is behind the aircraft you're flying, if you fly certain types of aircraft, and also I'm aware of the, I guess, the compliance, the governance that sits or wraps around aviation in general, especially, you know, in those nations that have better oversight and can afford to have oversight. And obviously these, these are companies trying to make money, and so there's basically an operational oversight and there's an engineering oversight, and so the engineering around aviation is incredible. We've had over a hundred years to work out how airplanes work and how to make them better.
21:27
You know, and I think if cars had actually advanced as much as airplanes had from the first car or, say, right flyer, to what we're now flying versus a car, they'd be incredible machines. They are incredible machines, but they haven't advanced as much as what aviation has, and so there is also, I guess, a volume of knowledge gained. So the engineering is the analytical engineering. They understand it. But aircraft then have to be certified by flying a certain number of hours to demonstrate that they have safety, and then the aircrew have to first of all be selected and complete their training, and then they are constantly undergoing training and testing throughout your aviation career. It's not like you get the stamp of approval and it's over. So you know, I was a flying instructor, so the standards at which we train to and test to are quite rigorous. But also throughout the year I would be constantly testing pilots. You know operational pilots when I was at a squadron as a flying instructor, and so let me see, I think you probably have at least a minimum of seven or eight tests throughout the year.
22:34
So four times a year do what were a day night dual check, which was basically how you physically handle the aircraft. Then once a year you'd get an instrument rating test, which was basically can you fly within the required accuracy limits and demonstrate knowledge of the instrument procedures plus general aviation knowledge, with a quiz. And then you'd do two emergency refresher checks where we put them in the simulator and conduct a number of emergencies. And so an emergency. They'd have to remember what's known as boldface, so a number of immediate recoil actions, such as, say, for an engine fire or an abort, an aborted takeoff, that have to memorize these responses and work with the crew to then use the to make the equipment safe and then recover the aircraft, plus also some quite deep, complex emergencies where they then have to refer to flight manual and performance charts etc. And that occurs twice a year. So that's for your baseline pilot, your line pilot. He's doing at least eight tests a year to ensure that he's performing to the standard required.
23:35 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah, I was reading a book.
23:36
I wish I could tell you what the name of the book was, but it's so fascinating because you'll have a certain person in a certain situation who they'll have a textbook knowledge of something, and you ask them the question of okay, what do you do in the situation where you know it's a 0.1 of a percent chance that it's going to happen?
23:51
But now you're in it and it's happened and you've got the knowledge, but you haven't been exposed to the actual emotional stress that comes with the situation like that. And I was thinking of it before when you told me about your mate Warren, who survived this accident, just that presence of mine to go, okay, well, I've got a practical solution that I'm going to at least apply or try in this, you know, really unfortunate situation. Is that something that you test? Because the mental side of flying an air force plane seems as though it comes with a couple of attachments for lack of a better word in that. Okay, I might have the knowledge, but how does that knowledge actually, you know, express itself when I've got these other emotional factors?
24:29 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, so we tested at various levels because obviously there is theory. So in the classroom you learn the theory, you learn your systems. You also then go into and I guess we probably escalate the stress. You know that the, the, the air crew members under to assess their performance when we're in training an air force. Training has advanced quite a bit from when I went through. So back then we had so many applicants, you kind of it was almost like a sink or swing approach to train, a sink or swim approach to training, and we had about a 50% pass rate.
25:01
When I later became OCEA training, we were implementing a lot of high performance programs where we acknowledged the investment we'd put into the pilot up to that point of their training and so we would go okay, based on the investment, we can actually put a bit more into this person to get them over the line.
25:16
We think we can actually still have a productive pilot generated from the training. Whereas in the past it was like you know, two scrub rides and you're gone, you know, and so the blogs, you're scrubbed, you're out here and you'd salute and walk out the door when the CEO told you. Whereas now we take a well, I'm very, I guess a business-minded approach to the investment, the money we've put into the pilot. We actually acknowledge that that people need to be resilient in these programs. So we get resilience programs and they also. They need to be taught how to learn, whereas we never really I don't think we were that sophisticated when I went through 30 odd years ago Whereas now the training is actually very supportive of the candidate within the system because it's getting a return on investment. We're putting defence puts quite a bit of money into the training and the systems that support training. We obviously want productive members to come out the end of it.
26:10 - Tyson (Host)
So what kind of stuff are you doing when it comes to training resilience in your pilots?
26:16 - Mark (Host)
So it was. We actually was being implemented when I was so. This was 15, no, sorry, 16, 17. They were using the SAS program to resilience and it was actually about knowledge. It was about how to take critique effectively and how to grow from critique.
26:36
Also, it was about awareness of you know, the failure is not really it's not about you, it's about your performance on the day. And also it was about open and closed mindsets. And I, you know, when we talked about open and closed mindsets, the US Marines, they don't praise people. They praise people for the work they've done to get there. Apparently and this is I've just here say because I've read this but they don't say you know, you're fantastic, you did a great job.
27:02
It was like you've done great work, you know, and you've worked hard to get to this level. So so you know, people don't realise that you can learn, you can change, and just because you're far, it's not the end of it. And the fact is you will fail, you know, because one thing about it is a lot of people that make it onto an Air Force pilot training. They are high performing individuals and they've generally done incredibly well throughout there, whether it's their sporting pursuits or their education at that point in time. But you know, pilot training is now approaches two years in total. It's quite a long, arduous process and in that time you know you're not always going to be on the top of your game and you're likely to face failure.
27:39
And it's about preparing them to how to deal with failure and how to grow from that.
27:42 - Tyson (Host)
That's so interesting. I mean it applies to so many areas Just in my life. As you were saying that, I was thinking. One thing that Jessie has learnt through a number of the parenting courses that she's taken places is when one of our kids does something wrong, don't go like, oh, you're just a naughty kid. Do what the Marines in the US do and go. Hey, that action is not helpful to anyone, and I can see how it's beneficial.
28:02
It's hard when you're emotional to remember that and not just go hey, you're a flog bang you know, what I mean, but when you actually pause and think about what it is you're trying to achieve and make so much sense, I find that with both running but also stand up comedy now, where a lot of my time and attention's gone- in.
28:17 - Mark (Host)
You're a brave bugger, Well it's so funny.
28:20 - Tyson (Host)
I feel like feelings are mutual, because the idea of flying a plane terrifies me as well, but I guess the consequences are a bit more dire. If you don't know how to fly a plane, if you don't know how to do stand up comedy, you just get embarrassed for a couple of minutes and then you just get on with it. But I'll often find that if I'll get up there and I'll have a good set one night, I might get up the next night and I'll have a bad set. And one of the things that often makes me feel better is hey, you've actually you've shown before that you've got the, you know how to do it, you've done it. You've had a room full of people laughing Like, yeah, you've got the skill. You just weren't able to execute for whatever reason.
28:51
Tonight and there's so many variables in the industry, like comedy as well Like you'll literally take the same joke set from one room to another room and in one room you'll kill an exact same thing. Take it to a new room and for whatever reason that the jokes will just fall flat. It could be obviously like the way it was presented. It could be the atmosphere in the room, it could be your delivery, like your state of mind, like an interruption in the room, and so to get down and to say you're bad at comedy, it's actually, first of all, it's not honest, but second of all it's not helpful. And so I often find, after a bomb, I'll go home and I'll watch professional comedians talk about bombs and how important it was to their development.
29:31
And so to hear I'm constantly amazed at how how this particular lesson applies to every single industry Like I guess it just applies to life in general, doesn't it? Failure is 100%, it's going to happen. It's not a matter of. It's not a matter of if it's gonna happen, it's simply a matter of when. And so you gotta be open enough in your mindset, or have? I find asking better questions one of the most helpful ways? For me, it's like all right. So if you're a bad comedian, why did you do so? Well, last night you go. Oh well, you sucker punched me, because now I have to think about you gotta justify.
30:00 - Mark (Host)
So this is interesting because you learn more from failure than you ever do from success. Do you ever, when you've had a great night, then go okay, why did that go so good?
30:09 - Tyson (Host)
I probably don't do it enough. I think sometimes you can rest. I noticed I rest on my laurels a little bit if I've had a good night. I the same laziness that I probably apply to the tough nights at the office, I probably apply to the other nights where I go. Gee, this is easy, do you know? I wake up the next morning. And but one thing I've started to try and be a little more disciplined with is I keep a notebook, so it has.
30:30
Every time I do a gig. I'll write down the jokes that I did and I'll write down my main focus before I get up on stage and I just do three dot points after it, like what went well, what went bad, what can I improve. And I just find the simplicity of that feedback really helpful. Cause for a while I used to. I used to have a little bit of a background not a background, but I did my toes into the water of day trading for about two years and one of the most important processes that, like elite day traders were saying you have to do, is you have to fill out a report at the end of the day.
31:00
What trades did you take? When did you enter? Why did you enter, why did you get out? Was it an A plus trade, was it an F trade? Was it profit, was it loss? And it used to take about half an hour or 20 minutes if you want to do it. Well, for each trade that you took. And I started to apply that to comedy, but because I was talking comedy so much, it just felt super laborious and like the idea of trying to do a page reflection was just, if you're doing four gigs in a night, it's like, oh my gosh, like just starts to become a whole nother thing. And so that three dot point thing is first of all, easy to digest and, second of all, easy to maintain.
31:35 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, four gigs in a night, really.
31:37 - Tyson (Host)
Well, that's a slight exaggeration. People do do that, yeah, yeah wow. Yeah, I mean I've done three.
31:42 - Mark (Host)
I'm interested in the alcohol curve of your audience as well. Do they get drunker?
31:46 - Tyson (Host)
throughout the night. Well, it's actually an interesting question because I often notice that if you want to have a strong performer go up first because a lot of the time that first performer can set the tone of a night to a large degree because you go out there it's a relatively dry audience. They don't know what they're in for. A lot of the rooms that I'm at they don't know if it's gonna be funny, do you know? So if you can send someone out first or if you're out first, yeah, you've got a bit of a challenge to win them over. But yeah, you definitely notice, as the drinks start going down, things start getting a lot funnier and a lot louder, whether that's for better or worse, but yeah, it's a really interesting world to be a part of. But yeah, just that reflective part of that is it was helpful, for I did the same thing with my training journals back in the day. Feel yourself like with any standout failures that were really helpful in your development as a pilot.
32:36 - Mark (Host)
So I guess I probably had a pretty smooth run. There were a couple of failures I had and I was although I wasn't kind of like a fighter pilot, I actually ended up becoming quite proficient as an aviator and it got to the point where and I stayed on one platform pretty much the whole time, except for the time out as a flying instructor. So it's like if you ride the same bike or drive the same car for almost 20 years, you get pretty good at it. So I made some poor decisions, which was and I think you talked about stress one thing we talk about is your SA bubble, your situational awareness, how big that is and that's usually the downfall of some of our aircrew is that under stress, their situational awareness bubble reduces to the point that they're not seeing things.
33:26
Because as a flying instructor, I could sit there and it's about the actual act of manipulating or moving an aircraft is pretty simple, it's not that complicated and often it's about how you acquire information.
33:39
So I could sit there and I could point out, as a flying instructor and I could go right, altitude, airspeed and, as I'm pointing things out to them, they make the appropriate adjustment to keep the aircraft within the performance parameters we require, but when you leave them alone and they then their situational awareness bubble reduces, they're not looking at the right places at the right times.
33:58
And so when I did make mistakes it was usually because there were lots of things happening and my situational awareness and bubble reduced to the point where I therefore missed something in the environment when I made a decision.
34:12
So, for instance, flying out of Darwin one time and I think we might've been going up to somewhere in Southeast Asia and you do a thing called an engine run up where you basically test the performance of the engines in various power ranges and you produce a lot of prop thrust, I almost blew the roof off the air movements terminal because there were things happening, there were radio calls and clearances going on, and I positioned the aircraft and pointed it straight at the air movements terminal and then did my engine run up and it was like and because there was obviously something that distracted me in my decision making, and so, yeah, my essay bubble reduced enough that I made a poor decision. And so a lot of the failures are usually decision based, they're not skills based, especially when you're, because flying an airplane is a complicated environment. So usually you miss something in the environment which you make a poor decision.
35:06
Yeah, and the thing about it being a poor decision is because I think if you gave someone else the same subset of information that the person made, they'd probably make the same decision, but it was a piece of information in the environment that you weren't aware of and that usually leads to that decision. So when air crew do make we say a poor decision, it's usually because they didn't have some information and say 2020, hindsight is a wonderful thing and so, but in the situation you go. Well, if I had the same information that person had, I probably would have made the same decision, but we classified as a poor decision.
35:40 - Tyson (Host)
How much is that changing with the automation of airlines and things? Like you were explaining to me this morning? That was something I I think I was a little bit aware of the fact that commercial airliners had some form of automation involved, but I didn't realize it was to the extent that what you're explaining it is tonight. Like you, I think I can't remember if I'm just taking words out of your mouth or if I'm just making this story up, but I think you said some were automated to the degree that they'll even do the taxi, yeah, so they can do auto take so the aircraft can steer itself around.
36:07 - Mark (Host)
So you're doing taxi you're doing takeoff.
36:09 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah, yeah.
36:09 - Mark (Host)
Now I'm not sure exactly what the operational requirements are, but there are some airframes where the pilots will, hands on control, monitor the aircraft automatically before the takeoff and the landing.
36:21
Obviously they're the more sophisticated, modern aircraft. And there are still aircraft out there which require the pilots to actually land the aircraft, disconnect the automation. But most airlines, especially into major, into major hubs, have what's called an instrument landing system which basically the aircraft can fly down to touchdown, and they also require the pilots or the aircraft to use these routing because it allows them to sequence the air traffic controlling, because air traffic controlling is an incredibly stressful role, and so I've got a mate who's an air traffic controller, who used to be the CEO of the School of Air Traffic Control in Air Force. But, yeah, it can be an incredible stressful job when you're trying to manage busy airspace and keep aircraft away from each other. Now there are a bunch of other systems that now TECAS sorry, that's Terrain Collision Avoidance or Traffic Collision Avoidance. So the systems, now aircraft now talk to each other and you have awareness of where other aircraft are. But it's still an incredibly stressful job for air traffic controllers and difficult as well.
37:25 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah, so you've got, the air traffic controllers are equipped and then the pilots are also equipped with the information, just to bounce off each other. I've seen some interesting YouTube videos of San Francisco Airport and some of the takeoff and landing there, and I don't know what the duration that these flights will take, but it seemed pretty constant like every. It felt like 15 or 20 seconds as the plane coming or going. So you see, in that environment how I mean that looks like a fairly stressful situation to find yourself in.
37:49 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, honolulu. Honolulu was one of the busiest places I went into and I don't know where you're going to see one. We used to go in there all the time because it was a shared field and Hickam Air Force Base uses the same runway as Honolulu and on a Friday when everyone's coming into Hawaii for their weekend, it was incredibly busy airspace.
38:07 - Tyson (Host)
So you were flying from Melbourne to.
38:10 - Mark (Host)
Honolulu, yeah, so from Australia. Sometimes to be out of town is a bit from Richmond, but we'd always break that up. That was two hops for us would go to a South Pacific destination overnight there. That was a great thing about C-130s it didn't have the legs, the ability to go a long way really quick, so going somewhere was always an adventure. You'd always have somewhere in between and it would take you a couple of days to get somewhere. So it used to take us four days to get to the West Coast of the States. We'd fly out of Australia, land in the South Pacific Island somewhere, then fly into Hawaii and because we'd crossed a certain number of time zones, we needed a crew rest day. So you'd have a day off in Hawaii, which is terrible, and then you'd fly into the West Coast of the States.
38:49
So you would fly on over as a team. Yeah, yeah. So the crew of the aircraft. So C-130s, the traditional, the classics, which had flight engineers and navigators would have a minimum crew of five. So there was two pilots Captain and the co-pilot, flight engineer and a navigator and a load master who looks after the back end of the aircraft. The modern C-130s, c-130j, now have a minimum crew of three, which are the two pilots a lot of flight computers and automation on board the aircraft and a minimum one load master.
39:20 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah. So you said before you're not a fighter pilot, and this was something that I'm so interested in, because when you say you're a part of the Air Force, I get confused as to what that means specifically. Like my granddad, he was involved in the Navy and I've never had a conversation with him where I'm like okay, I understand there's a ship, there's a whole heap of people on the ship, but if you were to ask me what specifically he was doing or what was going on, I go. You know what I'm not 100% sure the dynamics of it all. So if you're not a fighter pilot, like if you're not actually out there in the middle of a battle and you're trying to shoot down other planes or whatever it is that you're doing like what is it specifically that a person in your role does?
39:56 - Mark (Host)
So, first of all, I'll let you know that the Air Force aviation is an incredibly broad spectrum, so we operate everything from balloons up to F-35, probably the most sophisticated fifth generation fighter out there maybe with the F-22.
40:11
So and the blown is for recruiting and obviously PR. But we also have the Air Force Museum and they are not on the Air Force register there, a civil register. So we operate a historical aircraft as well, up to the F-35. But so my career was mostly on C-130s. So we were you can trans-look at it later yeah, so four-engined Basically it's probably the classic airlifter after the decoder. It still persists. There's still building them today, which was basically transport Before we had C-17s. It used to do effectively tactical transport through to strategic transport, because we didn't have anything plus with the C-707.
40:52
At the time, Once we got the C-17, the C-130 mainly focused on tactical transport. So that's basically from, you know, less developed airfields. Although it can operate out of major airfields, it was into dirt strips, you know, basically less prepared, Also strips in the middle of nowhere, so at night unlit kind of stuff as well. So tactical transport Most of the time is what we call trash hauling.
41:20
We just go from point A to point B with a hibikago or passengers down the back Sitting up the front, you know, eating Frosos, having tech discussions, reading magazines. If someone had connectivity they'd put me day trade up there if they could. So it's, you know you're just doing an eight hour leg. You probably you focus your attention, obviously, take off to top of climb, top of climb to landing when you are most focused. But that bit in the middle you have a work cycle. So where you deal with navigation, you monitor systems, look at your fuel usage, talk to air traffic control and occasionally you know you run a tech conversation, you educate the crew, you discuss something, but yes, a lot of also eating Frosos.
42:07 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah, what's a Frosos? I think I remember. I don't know what shape they are, but there's little packet. They're different.
42:13 - Mark (Host)
Frosos, depending on who does the catering. Air Force used to have a do its own catering, but they're basically a bunch of frozen mills that you throw in an oven or a microwave.
42:23 - Tyson (Host)
Ah, I was thinking like I don't know what I was thinking. I was thinking like a.
42:27 - Mark (Host)
Basically, what do you call them? Mre mills ready to eat kind of thing Like field rations.
42:34 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah.
42:35 - Mark (Host)
Rat packs, as we also call them.
42:37 - Tyson (Host)
Man, it's so interesting. I know the plane you're talking about now. I don't know if I've seen this specific one in action, but I've seen planes that look big like that. I don't know why. Originally I was thinking like a smaller plane that you're flying, but you see, they're intimidating looking machines, aren't they? I used to think they were big.
42:53 - Mark (Host)
So you know, when I so obviously we flew small aircraft I trained on the CD4 and the Mackie, the MB339, 336, 339, I think, and then basically you turn up to a C-130, you go my God, that's big. But then you go somewhere and you park next to, say, a 747, or you park next to a C-17, and you go, my God, that's big and it's like this and so big.
43:15
And also the airplane gets smaller as you become more familiar with it, so it becomes like an. You kind of know how long the wing is, you know what you're going to be able to get past and so you have an awareness of the airframe around you, and it seems to get smaller the more time you spend in the airplane, as you become more aware of it.
43:32 - Tyson (Host)
Gee, I spoke to a what did that be airmail company in the US? Oh, us Postal maybe.
43:40 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, there's another one.
43:41 - Tyson (Host)
There's another one that FedEx, fedex. I was speaking to a lady who was a FedEx pilot for years and I was actually at an airport and we're having a conversation she's like I had because we were sitting in what looked like really bad conditions, like it was windy, it was cloudy, you could hear thunder, and I was like, oh great, like this is going to be fun getting on this plane. And I don't know how the conversation started with her, but I said, oh, like, how are you feeling about it? And she's like, may, it used to be a FedEx pilot. I go, what does that mean? And she's like, dude, like what a commercial airline does in comparison with what I had to do, you just you can't even imagine.
44:14
She said like there were flights where I would have sand which was on the bottom of the flight, the bottom of the like on her shoes or around her shoes. We'd hit turbulence so bad that it would get in my eye. Or, and I was like I didn't realize you had so much wiggle room in terms of what was cable book, as the plane starts wobbling when I'm up there and I'm like, oh, here we go, like this is interesting, I think some days old. If I've had enough flights in a row, I go whatever. Like I'm not that fast. But if it's been a while between drinks and I get on a flight and we hit turbulence, I'm like are you, were you guys a little bit like the FedEx lady, like you just get into point A to point B as quick as you could, so you're just taking, you know, even a little more treacherous route.
44:50 - Mark (Host)
So we you're obviously aware. So you know, if we're, say, taking troops somewhere, you want them to be fit for purpose when they get there. So if they're parachuting, the last thing you want them to do is be sick when they're jumping out the back of an airplane. Or if you're doing an infuel X-fill, where you're putting troops on the ground, you want them to be able to hit the ground operating.
45:07
And so you look up to your troops. You tend to look up to your passengers anyhow, so you avoid turbulence. But at times that you can't avoid turbulence, you know, if we're flying from point A to point B, we'll change attitudes, and airlines do this all the time as well, you get reports about where the turbulence is.
45:19
They're usually associated with the jet streams, which are basically a slug of air that's moving at high velocity, and you get turbulence. So, unless it's associated with cloud, you know, say, a thunderstorm or something like that and so you can fly it out to choose to avoid turbulence. Sometimes you've got to penetrate turbulence anyhow. You can't avoid that. But yeah, you try and avoid it. It also fatigues the airframe, it also fatigues you, you know you, the pilots want to be have a comfortable ride as much as the passengers want to have a comfortable ride.
45:47 - Tyson (Host)
But I tend not to be worried about turbulence.
45:50 - Mark (Host)
If my wife used to be a great flyer, she used to love flying and traveling. Until she watched I think it was those air disaster shoes.
45:59 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah, I think they might have got me too, yeah and she watched one of those.
46:02 - Mark (Host)
And now she's. She doesn't mind flying on an Air Force aircraft, she's quite happy to do that, but every time we're on an airliner she just you know, she gets quite stressed beforehand and she's got an incredible grip strength, I found out during the takeoff.
46:15
It's like, babe, you're going to have to relax her if he's trying to hurt me and you know if the noise is like, it's okay, that's just the landing gear coming up, or what was that? Okay, well, that's just the hydraulic motor driving the flaps up. So I explain everything to her. It doesn't make it any easier for her, though, and I try and say to you look at me, if I look worried, you should be worried, okay, and I haven't. I've been, I guess, in some quite severe turbulence, also been struck by lightning, so yeah, what happens there?
46:43
Well, we were quite fortunate this was in the C-130J, so it was an electric aircraft, so basically it was all basically computer screens and head up displays and mission computers. We were actually flying out of Iraq back to our base in Qatar at Abdi did Air Force Base, and we were avoiding some thunderstorms, but we just got struck by a lot and it's a huge crack, you know, really loud, yeah, really loud, and I was like, okay, we're just watching all the systems when things to fall. And we were fortunate nothing failed. When we got back on the ground and they found the point at which the lightning struck. It was one of our fuel dump drains, so it's wings got a fuel dump drain where you can jettison all the fuel off the aircraft, and the rear edge of that was actually sitting up here, so it actually burned away part of this drain where the lightning had struck.
47:28 - Tyson (Host)
So what happens with a commercial airline If you get done by lightning, are they? Is there any fear that, like your technical gear goes out there? Or are you pretty?
47:35 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, because you don't know how it's going to affect the aircraft. Aircrafts have static wicks on them. So they basically you generate static as you move through the air and they basically have a conductive wick that hands off the back and it discharges static. So you know it could touch. It could touch down on one of those, but you don't know where it's going to strike or you know what the effects going to be, and we were fortunate it didn't affect any of our systems and we just continued the flight. Everything was working.
48:00 - Tyson (Host)
Oh man, it'd be enough to make you jump. I remember, I reckon, the most sketchy thing I've ever had, and I don't know how common this is. We were on a plane once and actually one one of the pilots once said, all right, like ladies and gentlemen, we're about to do a fuel dump, like we've got too much fuel on the plane. You're going to notice like we're going to drop pretty significantly. Like don't freak out at all, it's all planned. And then I was sort of sitting there like this, like, oh, here we go, and the drop just never seemed to come. I don't know exactly what happened there, but just the anticipation and the warning of what they were about to do. That was enough to get me a little bit jumpy.
48:29
But then one day we were just coming in. It was pretty bad turbulence. We were coming into land and we were low Like. We were really like do commercial? I don't know, is it a seven, three, seven, like a usual? Yeah, a couple of hundred people on there, one of the most successful airliners in the world, seven, three, seven, interesting. So we were about to land and it looked like we were 50 meters off the ground and then all of a sudden the engines roared and we were heading back up again and he said all right, we're going to have another crack at that. So I don't know whether that was just like a bad, a bad landing attempt, or it was like the old plates, or yeah.
48:59 - Mark (Host)
So jets are interesting. Proper craft like a C-130 has got so much thrust it can generate almost instantaniness. A jet has to spool up. It's got a spool up time, and so they tend to have what's called go around criteria, and all air crew do this. Certain things where you're bought the landing and give it another go, crack, you know, go around and redo it. And one thing they do with airliners is they have what they call a minimum ground speed, so if there are gusts in the area, you can actually get to the point, especially with the microbursts, where you can actually stall the aircraft because when coming from behind, you can then reduce the amount of lift you're generating. Yeah, and so that's could have been one of the things you know. It could have been the fact that they are outside of the instrument limits. Could have been many reasons why they chose to go around. Could have been another aircraft that hadn't yet.
49:52
The runway as well. So especially a very busy air. You know airfields, they've got the aircraft stacked up really close together and if the aircraft doesn't get off the runway quick enough then they would may also have to go around. So it could have been one of many Reasons that they conducted the go around. Gee, none and yeah, and then most of them have probably been no fault of their own.
50:11 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah, so you were saying you were based out at sale for a for two years in so two years. So that's where where I went to school. Obviously, I used to see the planes flying around a lot there and I always just had in my mind when I saw the flights oh, it was all the planes. I was like, okay, like they're, they're in sale, they fly around sale, they land in sale. I was never thinking about the fact that you guys were making international trips.
50:31 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, so in sale, which is mainly training.
50:35 - Tyson (Host)
So okay, central flying school, that's probably right. Yeah, so you're.
50:40 - Mark (Host)
Basically the training we do there is air combat officers used to be navigators plus the QFI is a qualified flying Instructors and most the training that's done there and 32 squadron which support the training of navigators and they do some operational Tasking. 32 squadron will do operate overseas operational tasking. They will also mainly support what used to be called the school of air navigation and I don't know what the schools called now, and it was the PC9, now the PC21, which was for the QFI training. Plus, as I mentioned, the roulette Roulette's are also based there, so they would also be practicing their routine.
51:18 - Tyson (Host)
So what are the roulette's? They're the ones. Are they the ones you see spinning in?
51:21 - Mark (Host)
yes, yes a formation aerobatics.
51:24 - Tyson (Host)
Was that what you were in when you said that was the only time you ever got sick in a plane? In an airplane, yes. So what was the story there? I've seen a daytime host back in the day. He I think this was more an intense like a jet of some sort and you just see him pass out halfway through the.
51:37 - Mark (Host)
They would have been possibly in a jet. I don't know if you're not prepared for the G. You couldn't pass out in a roulette, I think oh yeah.
51:43 - Tyson (Host)
So have you experienced that much? Have you been in the back back of a jet, or did you ever fly that style of plane?
51:47 - Mark (Host)
So only in training, we used to have the Mackie there, a Mackie which was a jet which we trained in back in the, I Think, until the early 90s when we got the PC 9 and we did all through pilot training. So it's not a high performance jet. We kind of joked that it was variable noise, constant thrust. But you could go high attitude and you could go quite fast in it. But you know those aircraft could still pull significant amount of G forces.
52:11 - Tyson (Host)
I don't remember them.
52:12 - Mark (Host)
It's a bit about six, six or seven G you could get up to, although we stayed. When you train, you stay well short of the aircraft limit because you don't want to. You know, pulling too much G and over stressing the aircraft.
52:22 - Tyson (Host)
So what were you doing in the back of the sorry? What's it called the rule? The rule, it's what we do a little bit of fun.
52:27 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, so this is the Air Force's display team. It's obviously supports a lot of activities Melbourne Cups, formula 1 races. You know, bathurst Promotes the Air Force. It's also a bit of recruiting activity. So, yeah, so the roulette's basically Develop a new routine, so there's what's called roulette lead and so he becomes the, effectively the, the leader of the team, and he flies roulette one and they develop a routine. Of course they try to put this stamp on the routine. There's been creativity in in generating an aerobatics routine and I had to effectively sign off on it for the commander of Air Force training group and so I would go for a ride with the roulette's why they do their training and then to Sign off on the routine and the. The story I'm talking about was they decided to do a second routine and I was fine for the first routine and it's a lot of G, it's a lot of maneuvering and when you're not actually in control the aircraft, it's worse than when you're flying.
53:26 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah, I agree to say with driving, yeah, exactly the same with driving.
53:29 - Mark (Host)
It's a winding road and I managed to hang on until the, until the end of the second go through the show. And what actually did me in was these incredibly quick snap rolls and and it was like I said to the roulette one, you know I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw up here and he said we could call it off. I said no, no, let's go through to the end. Oh, I was pulling G and dry, heaving into a bag.
53:58 - Tyson (Host)
Oh my gosh, how much longer do you have to go the flight?
54:00 - Mark (Host)
Oh, we only. We only had Possibly three or four minutes. It was kind of the pitch into the, into the land stream landing.
54:07 - Tyson (Host)
The three or four minutes like that seems like a lifetime.
54:09 - Mark (Host)
I don't know do when you're sick.
54:11 - Tyson (Host)
I could appreciate it, because I got the Jesse jokes that I've got the biggest princess stomach. I went to the Great Barrier Reef. Put me in a boat. I'm actually pretty good on. I'm very good on planes. I can't remember the last time, maybe when I was a little kid I got sick on a plane. Put me on a boat, though, or in a passenger seat of a car. No I. I went to the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 with my wife, brother-in-law and his wife, and I got to the Great Barrier Reef, been like a I don't know what it was Maybe two hour on a quite a small boat. Yeah, and we got. This is like you're not, you're not getting the water, you're too sick, and I was like Well that's what I thought.
54:44
That's what I thought I was like. I wish you'd let me in, because he seems to be the way, yeah, anyway. So I was asking Jesse to order me helicopters and get me back to land, because I'm just, I think. I'm a bit a land-based animal. I don't think I think my best.
54:58 - Mark (Host)
My best work is done down here, so we used to do Kind of low-level flying and there's often a bit of turbulence at low level and we had some load masters.
55:07
They were incredibly dedicated to their job because some of some of these guys would get incredibly yes, I knew one guy who used to tie a bin bag around his neck because, you know, run into either for a paratrooper low level he might be preparing a load to go to the back, you know, unfastening, tie down straps and that sort of stuff, and he would get sick and he would throw up in but continue to do the job. And we were doing a display one day at Richmond. We had to hold away from the field for the timing and it was low level and it was bumpy and we used to wear green flying suits, or still wear green flying suits, and when he stepped off the aircraft he was as green as the flying suit and I was like mate, you are incredibly dedicated, you know, or kudos to you because he used to really, really suffer, but he loved the job enough to stick at it, despite his it sounds like a rule, that sounds like a military mindset.
55:59 - Tyson (Host)
There's a certain respect I have for people in the military. I've got a couple of people that I know. I knew a bloke who Actually I know a bloke now saying this I'm not actually a hundred percent sure he's at least got that military mindset. That I appreciate, but I'm not convinced he's in the military US guy, but he's a kind of bloke that he has the capacity to when things get really hard. He's got more gears than than most people when things get really hard. He's got that clarity of mind that we spoke about earlier and I've watched people like that and I think I definitely Respect it. I can notice it myself to a certain degree, but it's a characteristic or a trait that I really appreciate about. I know this is a massive stereotype, but a lot of people that I see at least representing the military, like Jocko willing, I don't know. You know who he is, he's an American. I want to say he was a. I want to say he was a seal of some sort.
56:51 - Mark (Host)
I'll show you after this.
56:52 - Tyson (Host)
I'll show you. Anyway, he's a he's a bit of a wild man like. He's got some. He did like quite a number of trips to Iraq and he lost a lot of friends to suicide, lost a lot of friends in and around. So he's he's probably the pinnacle, like of an example of what I'm trying to talk about there. But he's that something that you notice that attracts a certain kind of mindset. Like I know you said with the Air Force, it was a really studious kind of kind of person who a lot of the time passes the test.
57:21 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, it's. I think it's interesting. Go defense forces are incredibly diverse, and so there are your operational roles and there are incredible support roles, so to say. All defense people are like that. You know, probably Might misrepresent the situation, but those in operational roles tend, I think, need to be, and so you know, we have administration, we have doctors.
57:43 - Tyson (Host)
Yes, of course, yeah, that makes sense.
57:45 - Mark (Host)
But those in the, in the operational roles, there's, I think there's, you know, there's obviously the recruitment standards, and so there's a lot of testing within recruitment.
57:54
There's also psych assessment, but then there's the selection throughout training. So first of all you need to pass training and all these attributes you are talking about are actually challenged in testing training. And then there is also self-selection. You know there are those. So if you look at probably some of the hardest selection, say for special forces, there will be a number of people who will sell and in fact I think their construct is they self-select out of the course, that they kind of they leave. It's fascinating special forces.
58:22
But I remember we had a young pilot who was struggling at 37 squadron, where I was at the time I think I was a training flight commander and he was really struggling to come up to speed for what we required of him In that role. And when he eventually got to the point where he was going to be and I think it was unsuitability is the was how we report on that he was unsuitable. When he saw that it was over, it was an incredible weight lifted off of him in because you know he was, he wasn't enjoying himself in the role. So sometimes people realize that you know, maybe this isn't for me, this isn't the life of me, and then self-select out, which I think is a great outcome. For sure you know to be miserable doing something that you thought you would love.
59:08 - Tyson (Host)
I think I reckon I've actually told you this before, but 2015, it was about 18 months after I finished my running I was like, what I do now, like what I do to finish, to fill this gap, I've still got so much passion, enthusiasm for like big physical adventures. I was like, all right, I'm gonna try, and it was. It was Funny because it's like the cliche of the ultimate challenge. I was like, all right, I'm gonna try and climb Mount Everest.
59:31 - Mark (Host)
And so someone who's who's Summited on Everest? Is that right, oh?
59:35 - Tyson (Host)
yeah, interesting. So I went to like a very long story short I had to raise the funds. I did do the training, I had to get the gear, I had to get the ticket approval. So I went to Nepal for a month in 2015. There for a month we had to climb Mount Laubochet and Island Peak with the two mountain names Essentially had to climb both of these for the company that I wanted to climb with to even consider you Based on insurance and just suitability, blah, blah, blah.
01:00:06
But remember it was the physical stress was one thing, but the, the actual fundraising stress was equally as way, because I was like, oh my god, it's gonna cost a hundred thousand dollars, like I don't have a hundred thousand dollars sitting in my bank that I can dedicate towards it's. You know, I don't have a hundred thousand bucks sitting in my bank at that time. I just I couldn't just dedicate it towards Climbing a mountain. Obviously I needed someone to fund it for me, and so that marketing side was huge. Long story short, before one of the mountains, I just I, altitude was fine, I just got a really bad dose of food poisoning. But the bloke that was running it said you can't climb today and I said well, if I can't climb, if I'm not allowed to climb, does that rule me out, or am I still able to prove myself on the other mountain? He goes no, you need the two mountains. And I was like whoa. So anyway, I felt the same way. I was kind of relieved, I was like okay, the stress is done.
01:00:57
So I sort of forget exactly where he was at my mates, I was like you should just flinch in New Zealand and see if you liked mountain climbing first.
01:01:03
Yeah, I got there and because I was, I was trying to, I had to be a hype man, yeah, because I was trying to raise a hundred grand so I could climb, so you had to be pretty out there with it and so it was kind of embarrassing, humbling, whatever, but people really understand me, but I was just. I just remember walking back with two Sherpas from the base that we were gonna climb. I think it was the first man I'll it was. I'll impeak back to the actual like bigger town and just be like, oh, thank God.
01:01:28 - Mark (Host)
So I used to do a bit of rock climbing.
01:01:30 - Tyson (Host)
Oh yeah.
01:01:30 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, and the guy I know that some of the guy named Brian Dawson kind of got me into rock climbing. He was a tech. I worked on C-130s when I was a young pilot At Richmond on C-130 ease and so I went out rock climbing with him a few times but he was really into the Alpineism. I personally I couldn't understand it because, you know, controlling risk to me that environment had so many risks you couldn't control I was like there's no way I'm ever gonna do anything like that. But rock climbing was something where I felt like I had an awareness of the risk, you know, with the placing of project Protection, the use of the gear and that type of stuff. But he was incredibly dedicated to to actually summoning well, alpineism and I think he wanted to use it. The seven summits on the high, someone on every, on every continent.
01:02:10
Yeah, that's right yeah but he basically lived on base in some on base flats and To get to the summit of Everest you do it with the army Alpine Association. So it was kind of largely funded by defense as a defense activity. But he sold his car, he sold his motorbike, he sold all his possession. He had a mattress, a single mattress in a room with all his climbing gear right around him and I was like, okay, that's actually a symbol of your dedication to achieving this goal. He sold everything to do that.
01:02:42 - Tyson (Host)
Gee it by the gear and be prepared for it seems to be a really familiar thing with the rock climbing world. I've seen a lot of documentaries. I'm a real big fan of a guy called Alex Honnold yes, free soloist, free soloist. So he, from what I understand, just lives in his van and travels from wall to wall to do his climbing. And I mean, I don't know if it was, you know, it was Tim. Yesterday I was speaking to about Patagonia and I read their book Let my people, let my people surf, I let my people go surfing or whatever. And just reading through that I was like, oh okay, this is just the culture. It was almost like that 70s surfers, a little counter culture. It was okay, we're not, we're not just gonna go to the corporate route where we're gonna say goodbye to all that stuff and we're gonna surf and get in nature and you know, our life just revolves around that. But you're right, it definitely takes some, some level of commitment to it.
01:03:26 - Mark (Host)
Yeah, so he was incredibly dedicated and he ended up, I think, on there. It's not think he was the only member who's submitted, so he was very fortunate man.
01:03:35 - Tyson (Host)
It's a, it's a wild scene. A couple of the guys that I was there with actually one of them, kevin Fairbrough, the Really interesting guy, british guy he's. He's now. He climbed three times, climbed to three times, which is unbelievable, I want to say the last time he did it without oxygen like any supportive tanks. So there's some, some wild people out there.
01:03:51 - Mark (Host)
Well, it is quite sad the impact that it's become an industry that really is the guiding industry. You know We've seen some images recently of some of the camps and the stuff that's been left behind and you know, hopefully they get on top of that and they sort of acts it was gonna be sustainable.
01:04:07 - Tyson (Host)
You've got a minimizer impact to the environment for sure, and without disrespect it, like anyone who's summoned at Everest, it's become like the four-minute mile now, to use a running analogy, which makes sense. It's still impressive, yeah, but it's no longer what it was back in, you know, the 50s. It's not the Edmund Hillary, exactly right. But, man, thanks for um, thanks for sitting down with me.
01:04:26 - Mark (Host)
That was fun.
01:04:27 - Tyson (Host)
It's just a good excuse to pick your brain for a little while and, like I can't say I know any Air Force pilots, so it was an unreal conversation. We didn't talk about much about Air Force and following ironically, like all the best podcast, they seem to be off track a little bit, but, um, I appreciate your insight and stuff and bye for a chat was fun. Yeah, thanks, tyson, I really enjoyed it Awesome.
01:04:45 - Mark (Host)
I'm looking forward to the next few days too. By the way, I'm here at Falls Creek. It's fantastic.
01:04:49 - Tyson (Host)
Yeah, it is beautiful. I am looking forward to it. We're going to uh forever on listening. We're off to do a little strength session in about 45 minutes, so I'm gonna get myself psyched up for that, but for now we'll leave it. Thank you so muchЧzzz.