Peeling the paint off an F-18 - A conversation with US Navy Pilot John Foley.

You can listen to the complete podcast interview here: https://bit.ly/JohnFoleyPodcast

This Q&A was adapted from my podcast conversation with John Foley that aired September 4th, 2018. John is former lead solo pilot for the US Navy’s Blue Angels. Now a Sloan Fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, John is an internationally-renowned keynote speaker in the areas of high performance for individuals and teams. He is also a gratitude guru who inspires audiences through his “glad to be here” mantra and foundation of the same name. 

?Dr. Greg Wells: John, I'm sensitive to your time, so I would love for you to tell us one final story, because I want to finish on fun. Please tell us about when you peeled the paint off a plane.

John Foley: Yeah that's funny. I remember we needed a test hop. One of the engines had a problem and I was the test pilot in the F-18. Test hops are cool. You have to have a thousand hours before you can do this stuff.

The best part about the test hop is not actually the flying. It was really taking time in maintenance control and talking to your teammates and your troops, the people you depend on, like the jet engine mechanics. I remember Sue was standing there and told me, "Sir, I replaced your engine,” and we had a conversation. She signed a piece of paper that said, "I did my job." Then my Quality Assurance chief was there. He was saying, "We've checked it,” and he signs his name on a piece of paper. My maintenance chief is there, the person in charge of compliance, and she said everything's good. But then you as a pilot, not just for a test flight – for every flight – you sign your name and what you're really saying is that you take full accountability for not only that airplane but the people around it. I really cherished that interaction in support of my teammates.

Anyway, I did the test hop. With an engine change, it's cool. You take the airplane airborne and one of the things you have to determine is what happens if the engine fails. Can you do an airborne restart? You actually purposely shut the engine down and then go through the restart procedures. I'm always hoping it restarts, but you have to test it.

Anyhow, I landed the jet that day and walked into maintenance control, looked in on my boss and said, "Hey! The airplane is ready to go.” They had met the specs, the highest specs the Navy had for a test pilot, and as far as I was concerned, the plane was good. Then, one day a little later, and I'll never forget this, the boss looks at me and says, "You know Gucci, I need you to take that airplane up one more time. I don't have confidence in this airplane. I don't want it to break. Yes, it did pass the test, but I want you to wring it out this time.”

Now, when you get an order to wring out an airplane, what they're really telling you is take it to the limit. So, I'm walking out to the airplane, thinking, "What limits do I want to push?" Because at that point, I had pushed a lot of limits in airplanes. One thing that just came up was how high and how fast? I don't know why that was in my mind, but I was thinking “how high, how fast can I take this jet?”

So when I was up there, I went on an unrestricted climb, full afterburners, boom! Supersonic. You have to do it over water. I point the nose up – and I am climbing and I start to see the curvature of the Earth. I go, "Holy cow!" So I realize, the engine's about to snuff out because there's not enough oxygen. So I’ve settled how high and my mind turns to how fast. I point the nose straight down. I come scorching out of the atmosphere at over a thousand miles per hour.

Anyhow, I land the jet, and I'll never forget it. I come out of the cockpit and my maintenance guy Joe is there and he’s saying, "Sir, what did you do?" I realize he's actually not looking at me, he's looking through me. I turn around and look at the jet and the paint is gone. I've actually melted some of the paint off the jet. I just remember the look on his face, because I was like, "Whoa! I went over a thousand miles per hour, Joe," he goes, "Cool! Don't worry, sir, I'll fix it for you. Glad to be here."

That idea of “glad to be here” is so important. What he was saying is “I’ve got your back. I’ve got you covered.”

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