Into the Danger Zone: TOPGUN Instructor Breaks Down the U.S. Strike on Iran

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On February 28th, the US and Israel mobilized a massive air strike on Iran deploying hundreds

of planes from around the region for a highly targeted daylight ambush.

Those aircraft have created the environment by which Iran is really going to have a very

difficult time preventing us from operating in their airspace wherever and however we want.

In this episode we speak to a top gun instructor about what it's like participating in a mission

on this scale and how the US military prepares their world class pilots for combat.

I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley and this is a weekend episode

of Morning Wire.

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Joining us now is retired Marine Corps pilot and top-gun instructor David Burke.

David, thanks for coming on.

Yeah, it's good to be here.

Thank you.

And just to start off, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I didn't realize that there were

fighter pilots in the Marines.

How did you go from being in the Marines to a top-gun instructor?

Yeah, it's a good question, and it's something that actually is common that there's a misunderstanding

that there are fighter pilots in the Marine Corps.

Naval aviation in general consists of both Navy and Marine Corps pilots, and we work really

closely together.

So all of foundational, initial training that Marines go through is Navy training.

So you might have a class that's 80% Navy, 20% Marines, and we go through all the same

training.

And back when I was doing this in the mid to late 90s, when I was getting my start,

we were flying a lot of the same airplanes much like we do now.

And so I ended up getting selected for the Marine Corps to fly the F-18 Hornet, and it turns

out that the Marine Corps had well over a dozen F-18 squadrons, and a handful of them

would deploy on Navy aircraft carriers.

And I was in a squadron in the Marine Corps that was attached to a Navy carrier, so I spent

four years as a Marine flying off Navy ships, aircraft carriers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I went to top-gun as a student as a Marine, and there's a relatively small percentage

of Marines they get to go.

And then I was invited back to being an instructor on a staff of 25 instructor pilots that have

three Marine pilots at the Navy's Weapon School, which we call Top Gun.

So I was very, very lucky as a Marine to have a career that I flew fighters for the Marine

Corps, but very closely connected and integrated with the Navy.

And that took me to Navy carriers.

That took me to Navy Top Gun, and it took me to be an instructor in Top Gun as a Marine.

Wow.

So I want to ask you, given your background about what insights you have into Operation

Epic Fury, which is the mission that was just kicked off over the weekend, what do

you know about this mission and what kind of insights can you give us about what went

down on Saturday?

Yeah.

I mean, this Georgia is a mission of huge magnitude.

The number of sorties, the coordination with both us, our naval and air forces, Israel's

air forces as well, there is a lot going on.

I'm fortunate to join my experience.

I flew combat missions off aircraft carriers, launching from the deck of a US carrier, very

similar to how we started this operation in a lot of coordination with a lot of land-based

assets.

This is an extensive, complex and comprehensive, very air-centric attack to start off this

campaign.

How does this attack compare to some things that you saw and how does it fit into the broader

context of American military history?

This is a big mission.

I don't want to make it sound like this is very small, but things that we've done in

somewhat recent history, 2003 in Iraq, 2001 in Afghanistan, we are accustomed and well-trained

to do exactly what you saw, which is hundreds of aircraft flying nonstop, 24 hour operations,

long missions.

We had some flights that are 18, 19 hours, originating in the United States.

Those are B2s from Whiteman flying all the way to Iran and back.

And so while this is pretty significant, this is something we are familiar with, something

we've been training to for a long time, and something that the US military is actually

really good at.

Now, when you say 18 hours, is that one guy in a small plane flying for 18 hours?

In this aircraft that we're talking about, the B2, they're going to be a pilot and a co-pilot

up in the aircraft.

And oftentimes they'll swap that out so you'll have more than one person in that case.

But you have a relatively small crew and a relatively small aircraft flying for literally

over 24 hours, 5 or 6 air refuels to get there, sometimes 5 or 6 air refuels to get home.

That is a mind-blowing experience that no one in the country in the world can create

that capability other than us in that aircraft.

Now we're still learning about what happened last week, but one pretty amazing story is

the pilots that were shot down in Kuwait that somehow survived.

What do we know about that incident?

Yeah, obviously, I think the most dramatic and the most challenging one we've seen so

far is the friendly fire incident where we lost three F-15s.

And there's video of those aircraft plummeting to the ground and anytime you lose an aircraft

in combat, that is a dramatic, it is a significant event.

First, I think it's amazing and we're very thankful and I thank God that all six air crew

walked away from that and they're okay.

But when you have an incident, a friendly fire incident, I think that is sometimes, unfortunately,

the best revelation of just how complex and how demanding air combat can be and how

very, very small errors can lead to huge catastrophic events when you're talking about aircraft

and losing three F-15s was really an unfortunate thing.

Again, I'm really glad they're all okay, but that was a really, really tough thing to

see because I know how often those blue and blue incidents, the potential for that is

very high.

We avoid them, but not always.

How did those pilots survive that?

I mean, just based on their training, what do they do in that situation?

Can you walk us through what that's actually like?

Yeah, and I say this, you know, kind of a double-edged sword on one sense, it's really

good.

We have unbelievably good training to prepare air crew for the advent of having to leave

an aircraft, having to inject out an aircraft and that training is excellent.

The other side of that is obviously something we don't ever want to have to do.

My estimate would be is when the incident happened and all three of those aircraft were hit

and the aircraft were no longer flyable, their training kicked in, they did exactly what

they were supposed to do.

The video is dramatic, not just them parachuting out of the aircraft, but them being interacting

with on the ground with the local coity populace, and those are crew exactly the way they're

trained, did exactly what we've all prepared for.

Like I said, it's a double-edged sword, but they executed flawlessly once that thing happened.

So how much time do they have, from the time they realize they've been struck to making

that decision, I presume, to shoot themselves out of their seats?

I mean, is that seconds?

Yeah, Georgia, that's a great question, and it is seconds.

Obviously, I can't replicate in my mind exactly what that's like, but to be in a friendly

aircraft over, essentially, in that case, friendly territory post-mission, the likelihood

in their mind that they were at risk was probably very low.

So I would assume that that thing cascaded out of control in a matter of seconds to the

point that they're hit, the aircraft is no longer flyable, they're very low to the ground,

and so that's seconds before they're pulling the ejection handle and making the decision

to get out of those airplanes.

That must have happened very, very quickly.

Now, sorry, just to get really granular about this, if the pilot pulls the ejection thing,

does that eject everyone out of the cabin together?

How does that work, the pilot and the co-pilot together?

Yeah, absolutely.

When you have a two-seat aircraft, like the F-15E, a pilot and a whizzo, it's very, very

likely the mode that they have set is either of the pilot or the backseat or either the pilot

or the whizzo, when they eject both air-true exit at the same time.

So what are we up against when it comes to Iran's flight capabilities?

Yeah, listen, I don't ever want to say that we are in a no-risk environment.

War comes with risks, aviation can be inherently risky.

That said, the Iranians are going to have a really hard time putting up a robust air

defense system.

And that doesn't mean that our aircraft are flying with impunity.

There's always risk, man-portable air defense systems, relatively small, mobile things

to shoot, those always exist.

But for the most part, we have done a really good job wiping out at the very beginning.

Iran's radar systems to find and locate us and our Iran's weapon system to shoot at us.

So those aircraft have created the environment by which Iran is really going to have a very

difficult time preventing us from operating in their airspace wherever and however we want.

We call that air dominance, air supremacy, we control the skies.

And again, the risk isn't zero, it never will be, but we have a really good handle on the

situation right now.

Now something that military buffs, including my producers, were buzzing about this past

week was the F-14 Tomcat jets that Iran has, which could now be destroyed.

First of all, why do they have those and why are so many people concerned about their

destruction?

What's the story with the F-14 Tomcat jets?

Yeah, the biggest thing I think you're looking at with the F-14 being flown by Iran, I

hate to say it, it's probably nostalgia.

Because the F-14 represented one of the most iconic aircraft America's ever built.

It was showcased in the movie Top Gun.

It's a legendary Navy fighter jet.

We actually sold F-14s to Iran in the 70s and they used them.

They've been able to preserve literally for the last 40 plus years a handful of flying

F-14s.

It's very unlikely, and at this point there were almost impossible for them to be functional.

But I think what you're talking about and why the question is being asked is, it's going

to be tough for any American fighter pilot to drop a bomb on an F-14 if they do fine

when they want to sell it on the ground, and we've done that with other American-made

aircrafts.

They have F-5s, F-4 phantoms.

They have a lot of older generation American fighters that they own and bought from us

in the 70s that we are single-handedly destroying, and that's going to pull on the heartstrings

of Naval aviators who hold those planes at high regard.

Now is this primarily a strike that's being fought by air?

It's a good question.

And yeah, for the most part that is, I think what it's demonstrating is a couple things.

One is the broad range of capability that aircraft can bring.

We can do a lot more than just shoot down enemy aircraft.

And Iran really is not in a position to defend themselves using aircraft to fight against

us.

So we have aircraft that can bring weapons to bear that cover the full range of, we can

take down headquarters buildings.

We can take down early-warning radar systems.

We can take down ballistic missile sites.

We can attack targets underground.

Aircraft are able to do, and the breadth of the U.S. Air Force, the Marine Corps, and

the maybe range of aircraft can do almost anything.

And so you're seeing a very, very, very heavy air-centric to include our partner in Israel

doing the exact same thing.

It's shaping the battlefield.

All the relevant targets out there for the most part can be hit by aircraft.

And that's how we're operating.

And it's a really good way to operate.

Now, last question.

I have a very small amount of insight into this just through some of my family lore.

My maternal grandfather was a fighter pilot in World War II.

He was actually shot down twice into the Pacific.

And he didn't speak about it for many, many years because it was really traumatic.

But one thing I did glean from talking to family members discussing it is that he said

this is basically a job that you can only get young men to do because you'd have to be

absolutely crazy to do some of these maneuvers in the air.

And a lot of young men actually died in training learning to do this.

So how do you teach pilots to overcome what must be an insane amount of fear to be able

to maintain presence of mind and complete a mission when you're, say, spinning in the

air or under heavy fire?

How do you even teach that skill?

Is this something that you can teach or is it something that some individuals just have?

Yeah, well, first I have to honor the legacy of your grandfather fighting in the Pacific.

And that's a remarkable thing, something you should be proud of.

I'm proud of your that.

And I would never want to correlate my experience in combat and certainly the training that

we go through to somehow being the same as what they endured in the Pacific in World

War II.

That was an unbelievable experience.

But I will tell you his comments are right.

There is a uniqueness to aviation and a uniqueness to the chaos that goes along in fighter aviation

in combat.

And it also speaks to the capability of, I think, two things.

One is we have men and women absolutely willing to do that.

I wouldn't say that they're fearless, but they're absolutely willing to put their fear

aside and put themselves in these incredibly chaotic, dangerous, life-risk environments

and do it happily.

It also speaks to the ability that we have learned definitely on the shoulders of men

like your grandfather, how to teach and train this.

And listen, I don't want to be arrogant.

I don't want to make it sound like nobody can do this.

This is something many people can do, but not everyone can do this.

The training program is hard.

It is very dynamic.

There's a lot going on, not just as I'm flying and fighting, but also with the technology

to managing systems in real time.

And so what he described, there's a lot of similarities now, and we have a blend of these

absolutely incredible people willing to risk their lives, but also incredibly well-trained.

The Navy and the Marine Corps and the Air Force have spent decades learning how to train pilots

to do exactly what they're doing, and part of the reason why this has been so successful

is how well-trained we are.

We have the best equipment, the best training in the world, and it's built on the legacy

of men like your grandfather, so we're very lucky to have that in our history.

All right, well, David, thank you so much for making time for us today.

This is a pretty remarkable thing that you and your guys do out there.

I'm absolutely honored to be here.

Thank you so much for having me on.

That was Chief Development Officer at Eshelon Front, retired Marine Fighter Pilot and

Top Gun Instructor David Burke, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.

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