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i don’t know what to think about samuel langley — 3 things you can have and still fail — confessions of a freelance test pilot #18

May 6, 2012 in confessions with 0 Comments

Samuel Langley has a curious role in aerospace history–one that I don’t know what to think about.

He was a highly successful astronomer, scientist, inventor, professor, and even a Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He was quite distinguished and internationally renown–he even received the Draper Medal from the National Academy of Sciences for his work in solar physics.

All of these facts I learned from wikipedia–because I knew so little about him.

Here’s what I did know about him already though:
He wasted $70,000 of Uncle Sam’s money trying to invent an airplane.

That’s a LOT of money in 1903 dollars, and I’m not sure it was all wasted. But the fact of the matter is, he never had an airplane to show for it. His invention launched off a platform from a ship in the Potomac and promptly flopped into the water below.

As we all know, the Wright brothers, bicycle makers from Ohio, beat him in that quest. And they did it without a grant.

There’s probably a commentary in there on acquisitions and Defense spending and other things, but I’ll try to mostly sidestep that one.

Today, as I write this, the situation with both DoD’s headline airplane projects and the big aircraft manufacturers is just as disappointing as Langley’s failed project. But again, I don’t want to stew in the failures of the past unless it gives some hope for the future.

Compare and contrast all this, with the plight of my good friend Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. He didn’t have any resources–no money, no bullets, no troops, no supplies for his troops, no reinforcements. Quite frankly, he had no hope, at least from the outside. He had far fewer men than he needed to defend Little Round Top, and the ones he did have were tired and wounded.

So far, that sounds a lot like today’s military.

With a tactical move that was either brilliant or desperate or both, Chamberlain charged down the hill and into history, saving the day, the battle, and the war for the Union.

The bright spot here is leadership.

It was not a tool or a process or metrics.

It was not a platform or a program or a decision arrived at by survey.

It wasn’t community or connectedness.

Langley had all those things–that’s three things you can have and still fail. Chamberlain had none.

But Chamberlain had purpose: He knew that he could not lose that hill. Read his writing–that’s what he said.

Call it what you want, whether it’s purpose or vision or a goal or a plan–what I know is that it gave him meaningful direction in a moment of uncertainty. It illuminated and guided his decision.

If what you have doesn’t do those things, it will flop and crash like a Langley “aerodrome.” (He couldn’t even give the flying thing a name that stuck–”aerodrome,” really?!)

I’d like to further suggest that together with purpose, we need Providence. But I won’t spend the time reinforcing that statement: If you agree, then I don’t need to, and if you don’t agree, it’s not likely I can convince you.

All of this is relevant to what I am doing right now, I promise. And in the days, weeks, and months ahead, I’d like to tell you more about Equator and Synergy. The short version of the story is this–they are two companies turned down by Kickstarter, who I think are changing the world–only time will tell.

We don’t need Kickstarter. We don’t need a platform or process.

We need purpose.

My purpose is to build seesaws to invest in leaders and inspire others. What’s yours?

You’ve just read confessions of a freelance test pilot, a monthly column that illustrates in my personal life and leadership the technical concepts found in ATOMs. Some people may not want the technical content that appears on this website–if you only want to follow these more personal updates, I set up a special subscription for that option here: by Email or RSS.

little league and hypersonic aerospace planes — confessions of a freelance test pilot #17

April 1, 2012 in confessions with 2 Comments

What do little league baseball and hypersonic aerospace planes have in common? A lot more than you think–the following statement sums up the similarities:

Our greatest conquest lies before us.

I’ll try to explain what I mean.

Robby, our third child (second son, age 6) just started church little league baseball this past week. I was able to attend his first game and snap this photo with my phone’s camera. I’ve missed a lot of “firsts” in the past, but I was fortunate enough to attend this one. I also witnessed his first strike out. He didn’t seem to mind it.

Emily Rose, on the other hand, was not pleased at all when she struck out–in fact, I think she was blinking back tears. She may not have even blinked them back, just let them flow freely. You see, she played in her first softball game this week too.

She has amazing physical talent. I watch her play softball, having never taught her a single thing about it, and see her effortlessly making plays at second base, or throwing people out from right field. Along with this talent comes the most passionate intensity I have ever seen–she pours out her heart into her games. So when she doesn’t perform, when her team loses, it crushes her. Fortunately, I know that it’s not really “crushing her”–it’s just a figure of speech.

In her second game, she went two for three at bat, had one RBI, and made several great plays. But she was so distressed on the ride home, because her team lost by one–with the bases loaded, the tie run was forced out at home plate on a grounder. Emily inherited this trait from my wife, Beth.

All of this drama is the first part of the explanation behind that bold statement I made above. The second part is this:

I want to be a test pilot in the first aerospace plane that takes off from a conventional runway, achieves self-propelled hypersonic flight in the upper atmosphere, and returns to earth for a normal landing on a conventional runway.

I still have big career dreams.

I’d also like to build a highly successful consulting firm. And I want to tell everyone that it’s called mc² and then explain why.

I want to inspire, inform, and invest in those who dream of exploring the unknown…whether that’s the unknown parts of the flight envelope or a technical leader taking his team to new heights.

But adding those feats to my “list of accomplishments” won’t be my greatest conquest.

My greatest conquest will be to win the hearts of my children and daily invest in them–inspire them to reach for heights that I can’t even imagine–inform them of the tools and relationships and character that will help them to reach their dreams.

My greatest conquest will be to keep my family first.

My greatest conquest will be to steward the lives and talents of each member of this family while I continue striving to be an example to them.

I want you to win too Emily Rose! But I don’t cry when you strike out, when you stumble, or even when you fail. I know those things are building character.

But I hope you’ll forgive me if I cry when I see you get back up…on your own, when I see you succeed. When you do that, you please this dad and the Father.

can’t see where we’re going — confessions of a freelance test pilot #16

March 4, 2012 in confessions with 1 Comment

In 2009, our oldest son Blake was going to turn ten. (Ten years old is a big deal–double digits–the next major milestone like that is triple digits, a long way off.)

Beth and I wanted to do something epic, something memorable to mark this milestone in his journey to manhood, so I planned a day hike. We were going to climb the highest mountain in the San Gabriel mountain range that borders the south edge of the Antelope Valley where we lived, Mount Baldy. We ended up climbing Mount Baden-Powell instead. (The reason why is a long story worth telling, but I’ll save it for another time).

There are three important facts about this trip that I want you to know at the outset.

1. We could see where we were going from afar.
The top of the mountain was in view from our house and most of the drive to the trailhead. We had also read descriptions and reviews of the hike and had a street map to get us to the trail. The point is, we had a vision of our destination.

2. Along the way, there were many times we couldn’t see the top of the mountain.
You can see what I mean in this picture. Knowing what our goal was and where we were going kept us motivated. Otherwise, we would not have made it to the top–we needed that encouragement and inspiration. On the other hand, we needed to focus on the back and forth of the winding trail and not the top of the mountain during our trek.

3. There was a trail with mile markers (some of which were missing) to help guide us.
Along the way, Blake was getting very tired–after all, he only had ten year old legs. He wanted to quit. He wanted to take another water break. He wanted another snack. At one point, I told him we would stop at the next mile marker (and that was the one that was missing–though I didn’t know that). When you are expecting the next milestone to be a mile up the trail, and it isn’t, the next mile seems very, very long.

The trail cut back and forth across the mountain–it did not go straight up the hill. I imagine the hike would have been much, much more difficult if we had tried to climb the steepest gradient. For that reason, a straight line to the top probably would not have been the fastest way.

At one point, we thought we saw the top, but the trail was leading us a different direction. It turned out to be a “false summit.” It’s a good thing we didn’t try to take a shortcut to this “false summit” like we thought about doing.

So what does all this mean?

I wouldn’t let Blake quit on the hike up to the summit–and he truly wanted to quit. I believed that he could do it, even though he didn’t believe–even though he didn’t want to do it at this point.

When we got to the summit, there was a transformation of Blake’s countenance. The fatigue came off his shoulders like his Camelback, and he breathed in enthusiasm with every gusty wind. I am pretty sure that my eyes began to “water” profusely as I watched from the top, and he finished the last hundred yards. We sat up there for a long time looking out over Los Angeles on one side and the Antelope Valley on the other and maybe even the Pacific Ocean, at the place where the edge of the sky became blurry in the haze of the metropolis below. We saw the lakebeds at Edwards AFB and the neighborhood where we lived. When we finally started back down the mountain, Blake wouldn’t stop talking. He literally wouldn’t stop talking. He was so excited.

I learned some things about being a dad. And I learned somethings about being a son, a small, immature, underdeveloped child in the eyes of my Father. I learned some things about my plans. I learned some things about His plans.

A journey like this–whether it’s a hike on a trail, a trip in your car, or a cross-country flight–is a vivid illustration, rich with analogies to life and strategic planning and the scientific method and even applications of statistics and metrics and analytics to all of the aforementioned areas.

I’ve made this trek a thousand times since then in my mind and in my life. Sometimes, we can’t see where we are going. Sometimes I want to take a shortcut to that place I see that I think is the summit, the destination.

Sometimes there isn’t a trail that I can see.

Sometimes the mile markers I was expecting aren’t there, and the next mile seems really long (when in reality it’s two miles).

Understanding all these things helps when I face the unexpected. Understanding the process or algorithm or steps to chart the course helps when we face the unexpected in engineering or statistics and even leadership and life.

It keeps us going. It guides us along the way. It gives us a vision of our destination.

It helps to have a shared mental picture of the journey and the process, and that’s the picture I am trying to paint.

Don’t quit. The view from the top is amazing, even when you know you have to go back down the mountain, down into the valleys of life.

It really was an epic journey, one I will cherish for a long time. If you want to see more pictures from our trek, you can see them on facebook.

circles — confessions of a freelance test pilot #15

February 5, 2012 in confessions with 4 Comments

Every time I hear the word “self-employed” or “solopreneur” (a solo entrepreneur), it makes me want to vomit. Let me explain why…

It was January of 2002, and I was stationed at Moody Air Force Base (AFB), living by myself in Valdosta, Georgia, because Beth was finishing college in Hawaii. We had been together at Christmas as a family, but vacation was over. Pilot training was back in full swing.

Air Force pilot training is hard, even if everything goes right. (I was reminded of this many times in the past eight months, as I re-qualified in the T-6 at Randolph AFB from July-November, and then completed the local area orientation check-out at Columbus AFB, a pilot training base in Mississippi.) But I knew that pilot training was a step in the direction of my dreams to become a test pilot.

That January, things started to go sour. The first time I flew a loop, the airplane went one way, and my stomach went the other. The second time, the airplane went one way, and my lunch went another! Airsickness–at this particular stage of the program–was a major problem. I was on the verge of washing out, perilously close to failing pilot training.

The Air Force has an extensive torture program designed just for this kind of situation, and its code name is the Barany Chair.

Spinning in Circles
I cannot even begin to describe the experience. You can see this device in the picture here, but I assure you, the team that follows real Barany Chair protocol does not smile like these airmen are.

For ten minutes at a time, the aerospace physiologist would spin me around, having me move my head this way and that–stimuli to aggravate the inner ear and induce motion sickness. They build up the stimuli–the first time, you just feel a little bit sick, and then they reduce it. The second time, it’s a little bit sicker. After that ten minutes is up, there is a ten minute rest followed by two more cycles like this. Most times, the protocol ended with the must gut wrenching vomiting…on the good days.

On the bad days, the days I didn’t void my stomach, I felt even worse. I don’t know why, but a recently vacated stomach left…nothing left to be upset about…and actually felt better. The protocol was horrific. I hated it. Despair is the only word I can use to describe that situation.

Every night that week, I would call Beth: “I just want to quit. Pilot training isn’t worth this.” She voiced encouragement. (This wasn’t the first time, and it hasn’t been the last time.)

Walking in Circles
German scientists demonstrated that people who are lost end up walking in circles. Furthermore there seemed to be no systematic bias evident–variation occurred in both directions. This happened when outside sensory cues were absent or diminished. When the sun was out, the “lost” had something with which to guide their way.

It’s hard to imagine walking in circles by accident–it’s hard to imagine getting lost. We live in a world of interstate highways and sidewalks and “you are here” signs. For those of us who venture out into nature, it’s usually on a trail system or loop. As long as we stay on the path, we won’t get lost.

Exploring uncharted territory doesn’t come naturally in today’s day and age. In Poke the Box author Seth Godin says, “Human nature is to need a map.” It’s also human nature to need a GPS in our cars, on our bikes, and in our phones.

What if I lose sight of the sun?
If your dream is big enough, it takes you into uncharted territory, off of the sidewalks and highways.

Sometimes, I lose sight of the sun. It’s easy to lose sight of the sun when you are spinning in circles on a Barany chair or staring at the bottom of a barf bag. I didn’t need to see it, though–Beth was still looking up. She could see the sun.

So every time I hear the word “self-employment” or “solopreneur,” it reminds me of a time and place…that I don’t want to revisit. I can almost taste the bile in my mouth. Any journey of value wasn’t meant to be travelled alone.

What I’m saying is, we need someone–I’ve got Beth–to help us see the way the Son is leading us. That’s three people–at a minimum–in this thing that I personally don’t want to call “self-employment.”

running on a new trail — confessions of a freelance test pilot #14

January 1, 2012 in confessions with 2 Comments

A few weeks ago, I set out on a run, on an unfamiliar trail–this post is about 3 rules for charting a course into unknown territory that I remembered on that run. But let me back up a little bit, because the background is important.

I left San Antonio and Randolph AFB in my rear view mirror on the day before Thanksgiving. I was finished with four months and six check rides of Pilot Instructor Training in the T-6A Texan II, and I was ready for the next leg of the journey. It was a long drive, but I arrived home in the wee hours of the morning on Thanksgiving Day.

The following Sunday, I woke up early and headed out for my weekly “long run” on the nearby Greenway, a paved trail system in Murfreesboro, TN. I had done some running on the Greenway during the past summer, but it had been several months since I’d been back. I was also going to run on a different part of the trail than what I had run during the summer.

So I set out on a three mile run–one and a half miles up the trail and then back to my start point. I turned on my Garmin running watch and my ipod and set out at a brisk pace. The Greenway was beautiful–it meanders through a meadow beside the Stones River that is full of cardinals in stunning red and robins with their orange feathered breasts puffed out. I even saw a family of deer leap through the woods along the river.

After what seemed like an eternity, I glanced down at my watch, wanting to check my progress and figure out where to turn around.

I had only gone six-tenths of a mile.

I was dumbfounded. Having just completed a half-marathon at a personal best pace in San Antonio a week or so before, I couldn’t believe I was having such a hard time judging my distance and effort.

Come to think of it, the first two miles of the race in San Antonio had a similar effect. I remember glancing at my GPS after the start of the half marathon–less than two miles into the race–and being astonished that I hadn’t gone farther.

I think that when we set out on a unknown trail, our minds go into overdrive, observing all the new sights, every twist and turn, every hill and dale. The novelty and our enthusiasm make time stand still. On the contrary, when we are familiar with a journey, we mindlessly watch as the miles go by and hardly notice the passing hours. We overlook much of the detail that captures our mind’s eye on those early trips, when the route is still new.

Thankfully, I had a GPS watch with me that morning. I could know with certainty when I had reached the halfway point–though I did have to increase the frequency with which I crosschecked my GPS, at least until I got to the turnaround.

But I also had a certain level of experience on my side. I had run three miles before–many times before. I had run even farther distances many times before–like the many miles I had logged in the desert at Edwards, pictured here. And I knew that this time was like all the others, in the sense that I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I’m recounting all this mostly because I needed to remind myself. This part of life’s journey is very new. I’ve never experienced the specific ups and downs, twists and turns, that I am experiencing now…as an consultant/freelance test pilot/entrepreneur, AF reservist and puppy owner and as I enter the New Year. So I am capturing here three lessons that I realized, reinforcing three key points that apply not just to life but also to leadership.

1. I need something to guide my way.
Everyone–from CEO to line worker–needs to understand what the goal is–or at least, how it applies at their level. Everyone needs to be able to ask (and reasonably answer) if the next step is progressing the team, organization, or individual, towards the goal. That morning, all I had to do was stay on the paved trail. Life and business and statistics and leadership aren’t that simple. In life, I find that I have to constantly refocus my vision, but more specifically, I need to constantly remind myself of the purpose of this website and mc².

2. I need a way to measure my progress.
Sometimes all you need is a simple, common tool–it might be something like a GPS watch for running on a paved trail or a car odometer when driving along the interstate. Or it might be a ground reference that we use in aerial navigation. But the challenge for leadership is how to measure progress when blazing new trails, how to select a waypoint or benchmark that can be measured accurately–it has to be something trustworthy, something more reliable than perceived effort or estimated time elapsed, something based on fundamental principles and proven analytical tools. This point is so important!

3. How I apply my experience matters.
I need to apply what I’ve learned to the situation I am in and continue to learn, not only from my experience but also from the wisdom and experience of others. Now that I’ve run that route once, I know the major milestones and landmarks. The small steps–one foot in front of the other–worked again. I need to focus on making progress and not on how far I have to go. And just as I expected, when I do that on a run, I don’t as easily lose track of time and distance. There will be more runs, longer ones, in the days ahead, to parts of the trail that I haven’t been on yet. I will aslo explore and experience parts of life and business that I’ve never experienced before. Small steps work in life and business and aerospace and statistics–they help us mange innovation better.

who can find — confessions of a freelance test pilot #13

November 6, 2011 in confessions with 1 Comment

When I moved to Hawaii in June of 1999, I didn’t know what to expect, didn’t know what I would find. The Air Force was allowing me to pursue a master’s degree in mathematics at the University of Hawaii as a recently commissioned second lieutenant, because I had won an East-West Fellowship from the Asia-Pacific think tank of the same name headquartered at UH Manoa.

Hawaii is the rainbow state, and it is aptly named. (Can you see the rainbow just on the horizon in the bottom right of the picture?) Hawaii is surreal in its beauty. The vibrant colors that leap from this picture don’t even compare to the actual beauty you see and experience in person.

I could go on and on about the tropical splendor, but it really doesn’t even begin to describe this place.

Let me back up a bit. As I neared the completion of my undergraduate years, I learned some hard lessons about life and relationships–most of these were a result of my own stubbornness. I felt that moving to Hawaii and moving out on my own was a God-given opportunity to begin seeking a companion.

I had clearly matured quite a bit in college, because as I began to seek for a church home in Hawaii, I had an extensive list of doctrinal qualifications it had to meet: single’s group, single ladies my age…and maybe a few other things.

I searched for weeks. I found several highly qualified churches. However, there was something (or Someone) gnawing away deep inside that kept me from committing to these “highly qualified churches.” At long last, I gave in to conviction rather than courtship as criteria for picking a church. On the very night that I stood before this small Baptist church in Honolulu and gave my testimony, I even joked about how a man must “leave his father and mother and cleave…” In my jest, however, I admitted–at least to myself–that in this particular church, I didn’t see any bachelorettes.

I had given up, at least momentarily, on the hopes of finding a future wife candidate in this church. It reminded me of Proverbs 31:10, “Who can find a virtuous woman?” [emphasis mine].

Little did I know that asking this very question, perhaps, admitting this question, was the first step on a journey that led a future test pilot to a chance meeting with…someone who I didn’t even notice sitting in the crowd noticing me.

What does all this have to do with being a test pilot?

I had some business cards printed today. In a gutsy move, I printed this on the front of the cards:

Mark Jones Jr.

Husband, Father, Statistical Consultant & Experimental Test Pilot

The point is, I am a husband before I am a test pilot.

When I read Proverbs 31, I see a successful man–I hadn’t noticed him in that chapter at this point in my life. But Someone had, and He knew that I needed to lead my family first before I would ever lead the crew on an experimental test flight. In fact, without her, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Those aren’t just words–without my wife, I would have washed out of pilot training, failed miserably, and never even had the chance to be a test pilot…

Publisher’s note: (That’s me–it just sounds more official when I write it that way.) Some people may not want all the techno-mumbo-jumbo that’s normally in this blog, and you may only want to subscribe to these more personal updates. So I set up a special subscription for that option here: by Email or RSS.

Charlie Duke Moonwalker – confessions of a freelance test pilot #12

October 24, 2011 in confessions with 1 Comment

I read the autobiography Charlie Duke Moonwalker about an Apollo 16 astronaut before I attended Test Pilot School. (I am rereading now as I prepare to republish it digitally, and I will give you all a sneak peek at the finished version very soon).

Charlie’s account of the Test Pilot School experience is spot on–everything, including the response of his wife, brought back a flood of memories and even some tears.

Here is an excerpt that really made me laugh:

Because they felt that the problem was due to a loss of potassium, the docs had decided to add large doses of potassium to our food. In this way they hoped to maintain a proper level in our bodies. But as a safety measure, they had also decided to add some new medication to our in-flight medical kit. If serious trouble arose, we would have syringes of this special medication, which we could inject directly into our hearts.

One of the doctors got up to explain the procedure. “Here is one of the syringes that we want you to use.” That syringe got our attention! It was about three inches long and about the size of a 12-gauge shotgun shell. The needle was not exposed.

“Take the syringe and place it right below your sternum, or breast bone.” He showed us how to count down a certain number of ribs to get to the right place. “Press hard and a needle from inside the canister will fire into the heart and inject the medicine.” We didn’t much like this idea and expressed our feelings to the doctors.

“Well, there’s really nothing to it,” they answered. “We’ll give you a demonstration.” They had a Styrofoam ball about the size of a large orange. One of them took the ball in one hand and the syringe in the other and pressed the syringe against the Styrofoam ball.

And as he pressed hard, bam-the thing went off! And as the needle fired the medicine into the ball, it blew the whole back end of the ball off. It was a shower of Styrofoam.

There was stunned silence in the room. I looked around and all six of us, the prime and backup crew, were as white as sheets!

You’ll have to wait for publication to read the rest of the story.

before and after – confessions of a freelance test pilot #11

September 26, 2011 in confessions with 2 Comments

The next few years following my return from Iraq are kind of a blur. I was participating in some amazing flight test activities–setting records and working with a great team–but the war on terror was still being fought around the world.

In July of 2010, I drew the short straw again. It was time to deploy, again. This time to Kabul, Afghanistan, another place where soldiers and airman were dying senselessly–shot down by a disgruntled member of our own allies–and too frequently.

The only thing that could make this any worse was having a newborn son…or so I thought.

Jake, our fourth child and third son was born a few weeks earlier on June 28, 2010. In fact, my commander had waited until I returned from leave, from spending time with our newborn, to tell me about this deployment.

As you can see, this picture is from December 2010. I’ve selected it specifically (instead of many other newborn pictures), because it represents many things…that we will get to. We’ll call this picture “before.”

I think Jake was about two weeks old when I went back to work and found out about this next deployment. There’s a reason I distinctly remember how old he was…

As my commander told me about the details of my deployment, I told him about the details of my separation from active duty: “Sir, I’ve been thinking about separating from the Air Force for quite some time, but this is the last nail in the coffin. You will have my separation papers on Monday.” It was Friday.

(I don’t want anyone to think for a minute that the Air Force is not an honorable institution. I think that military service is one of the highest honors with which any man or woman can serve our great country. Instead, I want you to know that my decision was made because serving my family is my priority, and the work had started to make it difficult to demonstrate that priority.)

My commander also knew that Jake was two weeks old. That’s not the only thing he knew–my commander also knew that Jake had just been diagnosed with a rare birth defect–two of the major bones in his skull were fused together–it was a condition known as craniosynostosis. (Beth has done a fantastic job of documenting Jake’s story starting here. There is also a great picture of Jake’s funny shaped head in that particular post.) I had been telling the doctors for two weeks that I thought Jake’s head was irregular. When they finally listened, they diagnosed this problem.

We were already trying to schedule Jake’s upcoming brain surgery for a date about two weeks before I deployed.

What a stinky place to be in!

The next five months were nothing short of unbearable.

My commander and my director of operations and several of my colleagues demonstrated, unquestionably, the utmost humility and service to me, to Jake, to my family, to our country and the Air Force–so many people volunteered to take my place on my deployment, so that I could be with Beth and Jake and our family during his surgery.

This kind of service should NOT meet so much red tape–it was so hard to get approval for someone to take my place. People were literally willing to sacrifice the entire future of their careers to take a four month deployment off of my hands, to deploy in my stead. Finally, a plan was approved. A dear friend, classmate, and colleague of mine assumed the responsibilities for my deployment. For my family the burden was finally lifted.

I cannot emphasize enough the total selflessness of my commander and DO and my colleagues. They toiled tirelessly to make that substitution happen. My supervisors even offered themselves in my place. There was never a time in my Air Force career that I witnessed such indescribable service.

A week later, the deployment to Kabul was cancelled. Nobody had to go. The person who had sacrificed to go in my place didn’t have to go. Providence leaves me speechless.

Meanwhile, Jake’s surgery had been rescheduled for December based on a variety of factors that included choosing a new surgeon.

Back to the “before” picture–Jake is holding a little teddy bear dressed in the colors of the 418th Flight Test Squadron. On top of all the selfless service this squadron had already poured out on me, they had taken the time to put together a photo book of Teddy flying on all the 418th airplanes, and hundreds of people from the squadron had signed the book with get well wishes for Jake and with prayers for our family. This “before” photo was taken the morning of Jake’s surgery, just a few hours before.

This is Jake after the surgery. Yes, that is swelling. I cannot even begin to describe the feelings that surged and swelled within me and ultimately found their way out through a leak in my eyes. But I did write about them that night here.

You can see the bandage from the incision–he has an amazing scar now that zig-zags up one side of his head, across the top, and down the other.

This is one of the first “after” photos. I have a hundred more photos that were taken after Jake’s surgery.

The road to recovery from this kind of surgery takes almost two years, requiring countless follow up appointments with the plastic surgery team, the neurosurgeon, the pediatrician…that’s a lot of medical appointments. That is the kind of thing that makes it important to have (or keep) one’s current insurance plan. Or the alternative could be very costly.

Six months away from voluntarily giving up my medical plan and steady income…

How would this detour affect our plans?

command perspective – the Strong Tower – confessions of a freelance test pilot #10

August 28, 2011 in confessions with 2 Comments

It takes me a while to learn some things. It probably takes me a bit longer than most pilots to pick up this or that hand-eye coordination. But I eventually learn it.

Sometimes I think that it takes me about four months to learn some of life’s lessons. That’s the length of most of the deployments that I’ve been on–that’s how long I was scheduled to be in Baghdad.

The capital city of Iraq had been ravaged by war–the city bore two sets of scars, one imposed by the brutal rule of a dictator and the second, like the marks left by stitches placed carefully by a doctor, were the scars of a war to liberate the country.

The compound where I live was surrounded by concrete walls–they look very similar to the kind of concrete barriers you see in a construction zone on the highway. Except these were at least ten feet tall, maybe fifteen. There were two layers of these walls surrounding the embassy compound in the Green Zone of Baghdad. The outer layer was on the banks of the Tigris River. Inside of it were hesco barriers, giant industrial size sand bags surrounded by a wire mesh to help them retain their shape. The second layer was around the outside of our camp, our living area. There was a two lane gravel road between the two layers.

I ran on that road over a hundred times. I ran in circles. I also drove up and down that road. I always wondered what the river looked like. I always wondered what the city across the river looked like. I drove that road because I would ferry personnel from our office down to the Army Forward Operating Base (FOB) a half mile or so away. Our office worked hand in hand with that unit.

One day, I was driving back from the FOB when I heard an explosion across the river. The area across the river had been a known concentration of enemy terrorists, hiding in homes and offices and businesses. All I could see was a plume of dark smoke rising into the hazy sky beyond the huge concrete wall.

The walls didn’t provide much protection. I know because during the previous three days, the buildings and camps inside the Green Zone had been attacked each morning, just before sunrise, by mortars lobbed over the river and over the fence. Tossed blindly into lives of the soldiers and sailors and airmen and contractors and government officials working there.

In fact, just one day before this particular drive, at about this particular time, the FOB had been hit by one of the mortars. One of the soliders in our sister unit had been in the blast radius. I had been to the combat hospital. I met the company commander of this particular, very young soldier. They wheeled him by us. We just saw him for a moment. Saw his body riddled with shrapnel. Swollen. IVs and central lines and catheters everywhere. He was going to live with his own set of scars.

Memories flashed through my mind–I had stood in that very spot (where he had been hit) countless times, standing next to the armored SUV that I drove there. Chatting with soldiers, with the officers I worked with.

I wasn’t there the day before though. I was no where near. How do you live with that kind of fear? How do you sleep at night knowing that you might never wake up, might never hear the piercing sound a mortar shell makes overhead before it lands within a lethal radius?

The answer to that question is what this story is about.

The first way to live with it is not to tell your wife about it when you talk to her on the phone every night.

The second way…that’s what Proverbs 18:10 is about. The Strong Tower.

Why is the phrase in this verse “Strong Tower”? There are a million ways to describe protection: fortress, cave, castle, cleft of the rock…

Many of these words are used to describe protection in other passages of scripture.

So there I was that morning, driving the up-armored SUV back down the gravel road, behind the concrete wall, watching the black cloud of smoke billowing into the hazy morning sky.

I passed one of many observation towers along the wall, and I saw one of the guards peering through a set of binoculars across the river…

…and it dawned on me. A strong tower…was right here before my eyes. I had run past them a hundred times. There were armored turrets on the top of each tower along the wall, each manned by a guard at all times.

I watched the guard looking out over the battle-worn city. I couldn’t see what he saw. But he commanded a perspective from atop that strong tower that provided a perspective on my life.

“The name of the Lord is a Strong Tower” (Proverbs 18:10a).

You go into a tower for protection. Sure–that’s one reason. But you also climb to the top of the Strong Tower for perspective. For Providential perspective. The Lord is orchestrating the battle on our behalf. He had choreographed the very path of each and every mortar shell, each piece of shrapnel hurtling through the air. He knew the times and the places.

That morning, the Lord welcomed to the top of the Strong Tower and showed me the battle raging below. I was safe. I was protected Providentially. I had a Providential perspective that few will ever have. I learned something that day about the first half of Proverbs 18:10.

We can all have that perspective. He offers that place of protection and providence and perspective to each of His saints. He wants you to see how He is taking care of the details in the battles we face in our lives. And I have climbed up the Strong Tower many times since then.

Fast forward another month and a half to Christmas Day 2008…

running in circles – confessions of a freelance test pilot #9

August 15, 2011 in confessions with 1 Comment

This is Baghdad. It’s a picture straight from Google maps.

I worked in the palace here. It was surreal. Some of the commodes were gilded with 24 karat gold. The doors in some of the interior chambers were covered in 24kt gold and then covered with massive glass cases. Everything–walls and floors–was marble.

There was one rust colored stain on one of the gold doors, and rumor was that it was a blood stain from where Saddam Hussein popped a cap in one of his henchmen.

If you google Baghdad, you will see that the little pin is right near a part of the Tigris river that bends like an elbow, ninety degrees to the left and then hooks almost immediately back to the right. You will also see this imaginary road across the river (the yellow line in the picture). There’s no road there.

This picture is that first bend in the river, the left turn to the West. I lived in the top left corner of this picture. In fact, if you find the round blue dome in the top left part of the picture, you can see a road running just to the right of this dome from the SSW to NNE. The road goes to the top of the picture, turns right (East) and heads for the river, where it turns South to the bottom left part of the picture where it turns NW back towards the palace and then up behind the palace. The “loop” is shaped like a wedge or a piece of pie with the pointy end bit off.

That loop is 1.1 miles long.

I know that because I started training for my first marathon while I lived here. You could run 0.8 miles, and then you would have to stop to show your special palace ID to get through a security gate on the South side of the palace. The road behind the palace was 0.3 miles long, and then you had to exit out another security gate. Then back another 0.8 miles around the loop. The guards soon got to know me quite well. I would run at 4 o’clock in the morning, before the heat.

There were concrete barriers and bunkers and sandbags everywhere.

I know that these details seem mundane. But our lives are made up of a million small moments, little details. The running was kind of an analogy for life there.

I ran in circles for hours at a time. The work was also the same routine every single day for seven days a week for four months. We never had any days off.

I didn’t wear an ipod while I ran–I wasn’t allowed. You had to be able to hear the alarms sounding in the event that the camp went under attack.

The area right across the river was a stronghold of bad guys.

Which leads me to two things. First, the four months I spent in Baghdad changed my life for ever. Like I said last time, it was a major fork in the road. It was when and where I decided to become a freelance test pilot.

Second, I learned what Proverbs 18:10 meant–did you ever wonder why the illustration in the verse is a “tower”? I can imagine a cave being a place of refuge or God’s hand being a place of refuge–but a tower?! I urge you to go read the verse for yourself (maybe the King James version, so you know what I was thinking). While you are there, read Psalms 18. It has great meaning to me too.

This was my very first assignment after test pilot school.

what was that phone call – confessions of a freelance test pilot #8

August 8, 2011 in confessions with 0 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve done this particular column. I apologize–there are a lot of reasons, but I won’t bore you with them.

If you forgot what last time was about, here is where the story left off. I had just graduated from the US Air Force Test Pilot school, one of the proudest accomplishments of my professional life.

I was taking some time off to be with my family, when I got a phone call…

It was 2008–Emily Rose was five–she was about to start kindergarten. Robby, our youngest at that time, was only three. Blake, our oldest son, was almost nine years old.

That phone call was my squadron commander telling me that I was to deploy to Iraq in about a month.

I never imagined that my first assignment after Test Pilot School would be back into the desert. Nor did I think it would be a non-flying job.

A nine year old boy is pretty smart. He can understand a lot, including the cost of war.

A five year old…she only knows that you aren’t going to be there to kiss her goodbye when she goes to her first day of school.

A three year old–fortunately, he doesn’t remember that you’ve already been gone for a third of his life.

A wife…she only knows…that there are a lot of widows.

Me…I knew that the next day I would wake up and have my devotions, and read Proverbs 18 like I had every other 18th day of the month before…and not see the verse that would come to mean so much to me in just a few short months.

I knew…so little about how the future was changing right in front of my eyes. That phone call was probably the fork in the trail. So here I am, a freelance test pilot, telling you two things:

1. That day–just a month over four years ago–began a journey–”I took the road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

2. That verse in Proverbs 18 changed my life.

What was that verse?

EJECT! confessions of a freelance test pilot #7

August 6, 2011 in confessions with 0 Comments

It was my first visual straight-in of the day. I was coming for a long, straight landing. The aircraft comes in low and slow over the ground at about 500 feet, with its gear extended for landing.

The T-6A Texan II, a trainer aircraft made by Beechcraft, has a singe turbo-prop engine. That’s it, one engine. That just a little detail that can be a problem sometimes.

I was only about a mile from the runway when things started to go wrong. A flashing red warning light on the instrument panel, and a warning tone screeching in my ear.

It was the engine FIRE warning. Did I tell you that the T-6 only has one engine? When you are that close to the ground, you can’t glide a mile to the runway.

Usually, before we assume that the engine is on fire, we check all of our instruments to confirm the warning indications.Well, all of the instruments, unfortunately, confirmed the story of the flashing light staring me in the eye.

There was only one thing to do…

I leaned back, straightening my back and neck, reached down for the yellow and black striped handle and pulled it with all my might.

The image froze in my mind–and it froze on the screen in front of me. The simulator was stopped. That’s how it responds when the ejection handle is pulled.

I was sweating. It was hot in there. It was almost like real life.

I say that the picture froze “in front of me,” but it actually wraps around above and behind my head for almost three hundred degrees. It’s an unbelievably real HD picture and stereo surround sound. It’s better than the IMAX or the wii.

In life, in business, in aviation, and in leadership, decisions aren’t made in the heat of the moment.

We don’t get smarter or more insightful in these situations. In fact, aviation research suggests that we actually decrease in our ability. We don’t rise to the occasion–we fall to the level of our training.

Successful people aren’t successful because they decide in the heat of the moment–in moments when they face adversity or heartache or discouragement–to keep going. If you wait until the heat of the moment, then you probably won’t make the decision to pull the ejection seat handle in time. You’ll be waffling, wondering, pondering, guessing. You’ll end up a statistic.

Success is a decision that’s made today–it’s made on the ground, when you’re aren’t moving a hundred and fifty miles per hour.

Success is living tomorrow the decision you made today. It’s relying on the character that took years to build. Sometimes, you might even call that friend with whom you’ve invested many hours in a relationship for a word of encouragement.

Success is a return on investment. It is the investment. Does that match your definition?

I consider this post part of the “confessions of a freelance test pilot” series, because my decision to separate from active duty and become a free lance test pilot is integral to my decision to become a reservist and fly the T-6.

is it a leap or a trudge – confessions of a freelance test pilot #6

July 11, 2011 in confessions with 0 Comments

Sometimes I get tired of this. Sometimes I have no idea where I am going? I can’t see any landmarks. The next waypoint at which to verify my position is not for miles.

All I have is this path in front of me. And a hill to climb.

I just want to be at the top.

That’s when faith becomes obedience. Keep trudging.

Running up a hill isn’t hard if you just shorten your stride. Shorten it even more. Small, choppy steps. So small they don’t feel like they are accomplishing anything. Stop trying to figure out how long it will take, at this rate, to get up the hill.

Sometimes people say that it takes a lot of courage, it takes a great leap of faith.

I look back, and it seems like I’ve come miles and miles and miles, and then I understand their comments. But it’s just been me trudging along.

I wrote this several weeks ago. Funny how it’s still so relevant now. Free agency, being a freelancer, a consultant, an entrepreneur…it all takes faith.

Jake is learning how to stand without any support right now. Occasionally I’ve seen him lift one foot up and move it forward a few inches. There’s a picture in there of how (im)mature my faith is.

Sometimes I stop. Sometimes I look around. Sometimes I see the mountain, and I see the child. That’s when I realize that being a freelance test pilot isn’t the hard task in front of me, isn’t the one that is going to take a lot of faith. The important job is to lead Jake and this family. The important job is to make sure that I lead this family the way that those men carved on that mountain carved out their leadership into history.

I’ll stop rambling now. The point is this:

Take another step.

It can be a small step. Rarely are we asked to jump. Maybe it’s because the little feet behind us aren’t ready to jump.

watching someone drown – confessions of a freelance test pilot #5

July 4, 2011 in confessions with 3 Comments

This isn’t necessarily a linear, chronological story. Is a confession ever really that way? Is any story that’s told authentically really ever that way?

I don’t want to see someone else die, another friend or colleague or relative. That’s why I am a freelance test pilot. Because I think that by doing what I am called to do, I can find just one other person who sees things from my perspective. Because the two of us can tell someone else. Because before long, we’ll have enough people to make a human chain that reaches out to that swimmer who is drowning.

Here’s what I mean about watching someone drown…

We are drowning in data and information–it’s a flood of biblical proportions. We are underwater because of statistical uncertainty.

It’s a torrential downpour, the kind that makes you want to stomp on the brakes–just hard enough to get stopped as quickly as possible but not so hard that you hydroplane.

We are afraid to keep going, because the visibility is so poor that we can’t even see in front of us. If someone is there, stopped, we won’t see them in time, or we’ll skid on the slippery pavement and come to a crashing halt.

We are afraid to stop, because of everything we just thought–we don’t want to be on the receiving end of the vehicle behind us that decided not to stop. Until it was too late.

In times like these, our default response is often to stop making decisions, not altering the status quo, letting our momentum keep us on the course that we had previously decided upon before the wall of water came gushing from the sky.

This kind of indecision is fatal.

Consider the March 2009 crash of an F-22 in the desert just north of Edwards Air Force Base. The airplane was lost in the bottom half of a split-S maneuver performed at one and a half times the speed of sound, lost because there was not enough altitude to recover. What was left of the airplane was nothing more than a smoking hole in the California desert. The pilot, who ejected, succumbed almost immediately to the injuries sustained from bailing out at a speed where the airflow is like a brick wall. (If you’ve ever fallen while water skiing, then you have a minute understanding of this principle. I’m not trying to be funny–I am deathly serious.)

A test point much like this had been performed before, probably many times. It was a flight test technique that was understood well–even students at the test pilot school practiced a similar maneuver. The first piece of information lost in the deluge was a minor change in the altitude at which the maneuver was being performed. It was lower. This resulted from a change in the airspeed parameters for the test.

Another piece of information swept away by the hustle and bustle was the type of recovery to be flown. It is unclear (at least to me) whether the recovery maneuver was briefed correctly and not flown or briefed incorrectly or not briefed at all. In any case, at least three parties-the test pilot, a chase plane and a ground based test conductor in a control room-failed to ensure that a proper recovery was flown. It is possible that those who reviewed the test and safety plan also neglected this critical piece of data.

I believe that the pilot was the only one who ever tracked this data, and he only tracked it during execution. The chase plane was scanning for other air traffic, and the control room personnel stopped collecting data once the test point parameters had been met.

Everybody knows that you don’t do a supersonic split-S. But nobody was thinking about it that day. We were preoccupied with a trillion other things. And I’m not exaggerating.

After the accident, a special team developed a “new” test planning process–an algorithmic approach to dive recovery planning called time safety margin.

It was not new or novel. It had been around for years. It was another fact that had been lost in the deluge of data.

What then is the prescription?

what is high calling – confessions of a freelance test pilot #4

June 20, 2011 in confessions with 2 Comments

Rick Husband had gone through the USAF TPS school house, and had gone on to become a NASA astronaut. His wife tells his story much better than I can in the book High Calling (affiliate link), which I started reading while I was in Test Pilot School.

At the end of the year, each graduating class gets to select an alumnus of the Test Pilot School to confer the honor of distinguished alumnus, but the honor only goes to graduates from twenty years ago or older. Rick Husband graduated twenty years before we did. So we were the first class able to select him for this honor, and it was certainly a privilege to do so.

We extended an invitation to his family to attend the graduation banquet, and while Mrs. Husband was not able to attend a close friend of the family was.

Many things were said about Rick Husband. What was not said troubled me–nothing was said of his faith or his family.

When I read the book, I was impressed with just how important his faith and his family were to him, so for a close family friend to not mention this at all…

Often I am convicted thus: “what will my friends say about me when my life is over?”

It wasn’t that night, but it was within a few months, that I determined anew, I recommitted myself, I answered that question.

When it’s all said and done, I don’t want people to remember what kind of test pilot I was. I don’t want people to have to memorize the Jones Theorem on the class of conditional linear regression strategies in statistical decision theory (though it does have a nice ring to it). But I do want people to know, to see in my life, that my priorities are my Father in heaven, my faith (living it out every day), and my family (the five most precious talents that the Lord has given me–because He will demand that I give an account some day).

Having said all that, I have to admit that I stink at doing it. But thankfully God gives us grace and mercy. In other words, it’s easy to sound pious on a blog, hard to do in real life.

Two asides are important here:

1. I am clearly not going to be a famous statistician, because my last name is Jones, or my fame will be masked by the name of the method. Examples: who invented Linear Regression (probably someone with a common name)? Or have you ever heard of Radon-Nikodym Theorem or Chebyshev’s Inequality. If I’ve misspelled these names, then I apologize, but it proves my point. Even aerodynamics has this phenomenon: Bernoulli, Prandtl numbers, etc.

2. I also believe that I have been given a priceless opportunity to influence at the confluence of flight test and mathematics/statistics and leadership — that this is one of the talents for which I must give an account. This is a vitally important piece of the puzzle.

So when did it all these thoughts dawn on me? How did Rick’s biography impact my dream to become an astronaut? Just a few short weeks after I had graduated from Test Pilot School, even before I got to the squadron, I got a phone call I will never forget…

confessions of a freelance test pilot #3 – who can find a virtuous woman

June 13, 2011 in confessions with 1 Comment

Last time I mentioned that “Beth” was our last debt to pay off, so I should probably explain.

Beth had attended college on a four year Army ROTC scholarship for nursing, and she was scheduled to get her commission as a second lieutenant in the US Army in June of 2002. The war in Afghanistan had just kicked off.

Fortunately, she was pregnant, and her commission was delayed for a year while we sorted through the options.

Emily was born in January of 2003, and the war in Iraq kicked off at the same time. Additionally, I was headed for Charleston AFB to fly the C-17, and I was very excited to join the war effort. But the closest Army base was over three hours away, and they would not let her cross-commission into the Air Force.

I was not, however, interested in putting two very young children in daycare while I flew all over the world and while Beth deployed as a nurse to the combat zone.

I told the Army that we were thinking about turning down her commission, and they said, “that will be $55,000 for college–the bill is in the mail.”

I told Beth that she was worth far, far more as a wife and mother than any income she could make as a nurse and any $55,000 Army bill.

Proverbs 31:10 says, “who can find a virtuous woman, for her price is far above rubies.” I’ve always believed that statement, but now I had solid evidence that rubies were worth at least $55K.

It was the best deal of my life. Family has always been a priority, but I did not realize the extent.

It would take me several years to truly know, understand, grasp, just how important they were. It would take several years before I would realize the cost of this life, career, sacrifice–that of being a military pilot.

Before paying off Beth’s Army bill, however, the previous debt was our minivan “goldie,” which we paid off in 2007 when we moved to Edwards AFB.

Coincidentally, I started reading the book High Calling at about the same time, a book about Rick Husband, who had been there at Edwards AFB. Little did I know how much we had in common, or how reading his story would insidiously alter the course of my life…

Publisher’s note: (That’s me–I’m the publisher. It just sounds more official when I write it that way.) Some people may not want all the techno-mumbo-jumbo that’s normally in this blog, and you may only want to subscribe to these more personal updates. So I set up a special subscription for that option here: by Email or RSS.

confessions of a freelance test pilot #2 – a rant about debt

June 4, 2011 in confessions with 0 Comments

I’m not quite to the point of explaining what this has to do with being a test pilot, but these are important pieces.

Here’s a message for the big airplane manufacturers of the world (the companies that test pilots work for), a message I think Dave Ramsey would endorse.

Stop designing airplanes on the margin. Stop borrowing money. Stop doing business like the government. Save up your money and pay cash for the next airplane. Focus on giving people good customer service. Connect with your customers and find out what they like, what they don’t, what they need, how to help them do their business better. Talk to them on social media instead of sending press releases. Find those values that made you great. Stop borrowing money. Don’t be an illustration in Jim Collins’ next book. Stop borrowing money.

If one of you decides to do this, you will stand out.

We don’t need more auto-maker bailout shenanigans from people like Cessna. But then I don’t like debt…thanks to Dave Ramsey.

I have very strong feelings about this. Today I am debt free. Being debt free in today’s day and age is pretty radical. Dave Ramsey is pretty radical, but he’s built a multi-million dollar business on principles.

Early in 2010, Beth and I went to see Dave in person in Cerritos, California. He let us shout with him, “I’m debt freeeeeeee!” The whole audience shouted along with us.

(Getting ready to buy a house and change that. But Dave lets people have a mulligan on house purchases.)

Being debt free was a major decision point–without it, I would not have felt the freedom to leave traditional employment, to leave a job I loved as the Air Force’s chief C-17 test pilot, to steer a heading towards free agency, the life of an entrepreneur.

One other thing, it’s not about what I was leaving. It’s about what I was headed toward, my vision of the future, a lifestyle in which the work I am passionate about is woven into the things that are central in my life.

My last debt–the best $55,000 I ever spent in my entire life–was my wife…

confessions of a freelance test pilot #1

June 1, 2011 in confessions with 0 Comments

I heard about Dan Miller from Dave Ramsey, sometime between 2005 and 2008 (I’ll have to explain that date range in a later post). But in the fall of 2008, this brand new graduate of USAF Test Pilot School class 07B was sitting behind a computer in Baghdad, Iraq. And doing a lot of reading of Dan’s newsletter.

Why was a test pilot on the ground in Iraq? I asked myself that same question. I wasn’t trying to shirk my responsibility to deploy–though I had done my share of deployments previously. Did I mention I wasn’t even flying?!

I was tired of being away from my family. Dan’s writing was encouraging. It planted a seed in my mind.

It’s been a long week today. But there was one really high point. Today I flew with best-selling author Dan Miller and my great friend Chris Findley. Today I told Dan about that seed that was planted three years ago. That seed has become a shoot.

Just shooting up out of the dirt.

Perhaps it’s more like a fledgling.

What’s all this got to do with being a test pilot?

Publisher’s note: (That’s me–it just sounds more official when I write it that way.) Some people may not want all the techno-mumbo-jumbo and may only want to subscribe to these more personal updates. So I set up a special subscription for that option here: by Email or RSS.

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