[stern, dramatic music playing]
[Justin "Astro" Elliott] If you look at
the accident rate on this team,
it's very, very high.
It's not unheard of to get through a full
assignment without a major accident.
But it's rare.
As I've started
to go through my last season,
I am very aware
that the odds are stacking against me.
It's my job to make sure that
it's not just me that doesn't die,
but every one of these members
of the team.
And the emotions that come with that
are enough to keep you awake at night.
Hey, how you doing?
-Doing well, sir.
-[Astro] Sorry, man, I missed. [laughs]
Yeah, perfect.
-[man] Have a great day.
-[Astro] Thank you so much.
-[man] Make some noise. [laughs]
-Yeah. We're gonna.
[laughs]
[inspirational piano music playing]
[Astro] You are the most experienced,
extraordinary,
handpicked airmen in the force.
The Thunderbirds represent the best
of humanity, but it's more than that.
The Thunderbirds represent excellence
as something greater than ourselves.
If we get this right,
we will actually inspire.
We'll ignite a unifying sense of purpose
within our country.
But to do this and to do it right,
we can't just be good.
We have to be extraordinary.
This is our mission.
[music crescendos, stops]
["Harder Than You Think"
by Public Enemy playing]
[Matt Jolley] Welcome to Show Center,
the air show podcast.
One of our first episodes of 2023.
I'm air show announcer, Matt Jolley,
joined by my colleagues,
air show announcers
Rick Peterson and Rob Reider.
[engine roars]
[propellers buzzing]
[Jolley] One of our
first episodes of 2023.
[man] Thunderbirds, check.
[Jolley] We're talking about
the Thunderbirds.
[song continues]
Talk about the exceptionalism
of these aviators.
[man] Let's run 'em up!
[Jolley] These pilots truly are
the best of the best of the best.
[man] And we're set.
of the rap game
Not bragging
Lips bigger than Jagger
Not saggin'
Spell it backwards
I'mma leave it at that
That ain't got nothing to do with rap
-Get up
-Just like that
-Get up
-Just like that
-Get up
-Just like that
Thunderbirds!
[whooping and laughing]
[Jolley] The Thunderbirds are
the US Air Force's display team,
and they're demonstrating
the exceptionalism
that our US Air Force operates at
to air shows all across the world
in hopes of inspiring
that next generation.
-Get up
-Just like that
[Reider] They are America's top g*ns,
executing the most extraordinary
combat maneuvers
in formation.
That's right, Chuck, man
That's what you gotta do
[Jolley] The Thunderbirds are truly
the rock stars of this world.
They're the headline act.
How close does this number two
get to a number three?
18 inches from my canopy to his wing.
[Astro] Full send.
[Astro] We'll do 62 shows this year.
[pilot] Break now.
-It's meant to look nearly impossible.
-[Astro] And roll.
So it's time to leave you a preview
[cheering, whistling]
[Jolley] When you zip that zipper,
a lot of responsibility comes with it.
Because suddenly you're somebody,
you're a Thunderbird.
[loud whoosh]
[Jolley] These are spectacular athletes.
These are exceptional humans.
-One, two, three, four!
-[all shouting]
[Jolley] They're America's team.
[breathing heavily through mask]
[song continues]
[song fades out]
[Jolley] Welcome to Show Center,
the air show podcast.
2023, January here,
we're rolling into the season,
a lot of new folks on the Thunderbirds.
[Reider] They're turning over
three of these pilots,
and it's like taking
the Etch-A-Sketch and just shaking it.
[Peterson] Oh yeah,
and the big-time training has begun.
They're flying two, three times a day now.
[Jolley] Let's talk about the boss a bit,
Astro Elliot.
One of the great bosses
of the Thunderbirds.
[Reider] Very effective
in the last season.
The variables are all there for this one.
[Peterson] He has
three months to figure this out.
[man] Hey!
Papi chulo! Okay, okay.
[laughing]
This the last one?
[Astro] All right, guys,
welcome to Spaceport.
If you take a look at the flight line,
this is what
it was always meant to be, guys.
We got zero traffic that's not
the US Air Force Thunderbirds.
This is the ideal flying situation
for training this team
to be the best it's ever been.
[rousing music playing]
[Reider] Team 2023,
six pilots,
three veterans.
Number five, Thunder, the lead solo.
You look at his jet on the ground
and the number five is upside down.
Why? Because he spends
most of his time upside down.
Number four, Threat.
She's the instructor,
she flies in the back of the diamond,
keeping her eyes
on the newbies on the wings.
[Astro] Go diamond.
[Lauren "Threat" Schlichting] Go diamond.
[Reider] Thunderbird number one, the boss.
That's Astro.
He's the guy in charge of everything
that goes on in the air
and also on the ground
for all 135 members of the team.
What he says goes.
The miracle about the Thunderbirds
to me is the fact that
we change team members every single year.
[intriguing music playing]
Every year we swap out 50% of our pilots.
You build a team from nothing.
We have three new pilots
joining the team this year.
They're gonna serve two years on the team.
They are already the three best
combat pilots the Air Force has to offer.
But air demonstration
is a completely different animal.
Thunderbird 6 is gonna be Miami.
He's the new solo on the team.
[Eric "Miami" Tise]
As for a new guy, they tell me the rules.
Don't hit the ground.
[Astro] Zeke is joining the team
as Thunderbird 2.
He'll be our left wingman.
Feeling good,
but I'm also feeling stressed.
I don't know how the training goes.
So it's just a trust in the process
that this is all gonna fall into place,
kind of like a puzzle.
[Astro] Finally, we have Primo.
Primo has an extensive background
on the F-16.
Lots of combat time.
He'll be joining the team this year
as Thunderbird 3.
[Jake "Primo" Impellizzeri]
We wanna be the best we can be
day one at the air show, which is
Like, it seems like it's tomorrow.
[Astro] All right, guys.
This is all I wanted to say to you.
The next two months are gonna be no joke.
We're gonna fly on weekends,
we'll do two-a-days.
It's January 9th right now.
COMACC cert is in exactly two months.
It's closer than you think.
It's a big deal.
And this is why we're here.
Okay, we're gonna do it right
with blind trust.
Thunderbirds!
[all] Blind trust!
[tense music plays]
[Jolley] There is a lot of pressure
riding on the certification process.
It hinges on the team's ability to perform
at the top,
in front of the American public.
And ultimately,
that decision for certification
rests in the hands
of the four-star general
in charge of air combat command.
And it's a yes or a no.
Teams that say they're elite aren't elite
until they actually start performing.
There are high standards
that are not negotiable.
If we had a certification go poorly,
we're not gonna clear the team
to go out the door and represent
the Air Force and the nation.
And no one can fake it.
[Astro] That final certification
is fixed on the calendar,
and that can be daunting.
-[Astro] Setting up for a high show.
-[Zeke] High show two.
-[Primo] Three.
-[Threat] Four.
-[Thunder] Five.
-[Miami] Six.
[Astro] Diamond's gonna enter TFR
with a loop on takeoff from right to left
and a left-hand turnout,
dropping in for a clover loopover.
Combat pilots are used to flying combat.
Well off the ground, in a fight, focused
on targeting, focused on the enemy.
Flying aerobatics is just
not something we train for.
You have to divorce yourself
from your survival instincts
to fly this demonstration.
It's 45 minutes of total chaos.
[engines roaring]
[low whooshing]
When you watch the diamond,
it's jets one, two, three and four.
The diamond shows
the formation capabilities of the team.
[Astro] Diamond Pass in Review is
the tightest formation
of flying that exists.
18 inches apart at a high rate of speed.
It's nerves of steel.
[pilot speaks indistinctly over radio]
[Astro] The slightest bobble
with either of my hands
will cause a four-jet collision.
[pilot speaking indistinctly over radio]
[Jolley] Solo pilots,
Thunderbirds 5 and 6,
are their own act in itself.
Two jets flying at a high rate of speed.
[loud whooshing]
Coming at each other with closing speeds
of nearly 1,000 miles an hour.
[air rumbling and ripping]
[Astro] You are microseconds of lag
from a life-threatening situation.
[Jolley] Six jets flying 18 inches apart,
nearly at the speed of sound.
They're doing the unbelievable.
Once they've thrilled everyone
beyond belief,
they blow everyone away
with the cl*max of the show,
the high b*mb burst.
[tense music plays]
There's this quiet
that comes over the crowd,
and every cell phone is up.
The high b*mb burst is actually
one of the most dangerous things we do.
[Jolley] You see these jets,
they're rocketing up toward the heavens.
-Then they break over the top.
-[Astro] Let's make ready now.
[whooshing]
We fly four different directions
across the sky.
We pull down through the vertical.
[over radio] Two mile section.
Two point four.
Forty-five hundred.
-Let's pull!
-[automated voice] Pull up.
[Jolley] They cross
within milliseconds of one another.
[Astro] Showing me their talent.
[Jolley] And finally, the rejoin.
In order to make the rejoin,
some of the pilots need to make
a high-velocity upside-down turn,
subjecting themselves
to unbelievable G-forces.
[panting]
[Astro] All three of the wingmen
have to anticipate the rejoin line
and the ground
that is approaching rapidly.
Just purely visually.
[stressful music playing]
[Astro over radio] 310, 320, 330, 340.
[Jolley] If done properly,
all of these jets meet at air show center.
[indistinct commands over radio]
Show center.
It's freaking awesome.
[whooshing and whistling]
[child speaking indistinctly]
[Astro] This assignment will either
destroy your family or make you stronger.
There's really no in-between.
Three hundred days deployed.
No weekends together
for two straight years.
Guys, get your shoes
and then breakfast, okay?
Okay, I'll wear the black shoes.
[Astro] There you go. Good decision.
Are you staying there all night?
Yes.
Only for one more day.
It's heartbreaking when the boys ask,
"Hey, Dad, are you staying tomorrow?"
And I have to say,
"No, I'm gone for 25 days."
Are you guys excited about school?
[bites spoon]
Okay, very good.
[laughs]
I didn't want him to be a Thunderbird.
[laughs]
I remember when he came home and he said,
"Hey, like, do you want to do this?"
Then I looked at all the crashes
and accidents and casualties
that had happened in Thunderbirds
and I remember calculating it,
and I thought, "That's 10%."
10% of Thunderbirds have died.
"I don't want Justin to do that."
I said no.
[Astro] What's four fours?
Four fours equals 16.
[Astro] Whoa.
-[Declan] I know that.
-How do you know that?
[Declan] Because none of
[Victoria] But watching the show
really was like an art form.
Instead of just combat flying,
it's almost like music.
You make this sound, it has no words,
you don't give it meaning,
but every person in the audience,
they have their own story
or response that they're feeling
as they watch.
It was really amazing, what they did,
and then I said, "Okay, sure." [laughs]
"Go ahead." [laughs]
"Throw your name in the hat."
[Astro] Here we go. Yes!
Oh, get out of here.
-[Revan] My turn. This is the strongest.
-[Astro] All right.
When you first join the Air Force,
service before self
is a very easy value to get behind.
Okay, here we go.
You have kids,
now that value changes.
-The yellow ones definitely go farther.
-[Victoria] I know. Well, no
[Astro] It's not just me going
and putting myself in danger.
It's now doing that with a young family
that is starting to understand that risk.
-[Astro] Come give dad a hug. We gotta go.
-[Revan] What do you mean?
Dad's gotta go fly.
All right, come here.
-[Astro growls]
-[Declan] Ah!
[Astro] All right, fine
It's really hard. It's hard on the kids.
I think it's hard on Justin.
The most exciting things about being
a parent, right, he misses that.
[Declan and Astro shouting]
Don't smash me. I gotta go fly.
Hey, all right, you guys have fun, okay?
I'll see you.
Babe.
-All right.
-[kisses]
[grunts] Love you a lot.
[Victoria] I love you too. Don't die.
All right.
"Don't die."
That's what she says.
That's her number one rule, her only rule.
She really does get that the risk is real.
But Victoria and I believe it's important
for our kids to see us set objectives
and go after things in the name of service
to something bigger than ourselves.
[zooming]
[distant, descending whoosh]
[Xavier Knapp] Ah. I don't see 'em.
[Ryan "Slinga" Yingling]
They're there. Got them covered?
[Knapp] Yeah.
[Slinga] All right.
[loud whooshing]
[Knapp] On the delta loop, as they pull
four Gs, four times the force of gravity,
they weigh four times their body weight
as they're going up into the air.
[steady rumbling]
[Knapp] Your heart rate and blood pressure
go up, your breathing increases.
[Slinga] Yeah.
[Knapp] And you have to do that,
maneuver after maneuver,
for 45 straight minutes.
[Travis "Angry" Grindstaff]
When you talk about G forces,
it's a multiple of gravity.
So one G is Earth's gravity,
what we're sitting at now.
So for a 200-pound person,
that person weighs 200 pounds.
A lot of times in the demonstration,
seven to eight Gs are pulled,
which means during that moment,
like, for those 10 to 15 seconds,
that person can weigh
almost a ton, or 2,000 pounds.
As much as a small elephant.
[whooshing roar]
About four Gs is where
your resting tolerance usually is.
Once you get above that,
your heart is no longer able
to pump blood to your head.
So what ends up happening, five Gs,
six Gs, seven Gs, eight Gs
Now the blood is getting
lower and lower and lower.
By the time you get to eight or nine Gs,
all the blood's draining out of your skull
and it goes straight down to your feet.
You can't stay conscious in that situation
because the brain is
a very high-level organ.
It requires a ton of oxygen and blood.
So in that situation,
you start to experience some changes.
First thing you see is
all the colors will go gray.
Crank up the Gs, seven, eight, nine
First, the vision
outside the peripheral vision goes away.
And then over time, it keeps moving in.
Black, black, black, black, black, black,
until you're looking through a soda straw.
If you don't do anything to fight back
everything goes black.
[Jolley] And when you lose it,
your body goes slack.
Your hands come off the controls.
And when you're that close to the ground
going that fast
-[male voice] Warning! Warning!
-[grunts]
[Jolley] if you come to,
it's often too late.
[indistinct chatter over radio]
[engines winding down]
[Astro] Regardless of how that went,
when we look at the tapes,
remember this, we did it.
Now we're gonna make it good.
Okay, so, we'll get into it
with a standard debrief.
So, we have a lot of work to do,
in all seriousness.
Lots to take away from this one.
That's why we do this.
And we're gonna pick apart
everything that went wrong.
And it's gonna feel like
you're getting crushed.
That final certification on March 10th,
it is not going to move.
And it can put pressure on us as a team
to sometimes push limits and boundaries
that we don't want to push.
I think it's very important for me and
for our Diamond Instructor Pilot, Threat,
to be in lockstep on how fast
to push those risk boundaries.
With wind shear and turbulence,
if you do get sucked in,
try and stay cool, calm and collected
and only gingerly apply that rudder,
so that they're not seeing
a whole face full of jet coming their way.
[Threat] Growing up,
I always wanted to be a fighter pilot.
It was like a longtime dream of mine.
In 2nd grade, I came home like, "I wanna
be a fighter pilot in the Air Force."
I don't know what that meant, I didn't
know what that meant in high school.
And I don't think I really,
totally understood that
until I got
to my first operation squadron.
Every once in a while, I'll look down
and be like, holy sh*t. Sorry, holy crap.
We have six airplanes so close.
This is so cool that I get paid
for my job to do this.
All right, what you're looking at is
three m*ssile tips-- ish--
above the canopy bow.
And then that third static wick in
pointing at the crux of the tail.
So it's deeper than you'd think it is.
And it's a little nebulous.
Um, so a lot more movement
I'm also the training officer. So I'm in
charge of the training for the 2023 team.
I'm kind of like
a lead-by-example kind of person.
And if I am not good enough,
it's my fault.
So I have to do the work.
I didn't have any aviation background
before starting pilot training.
So the natural skill wasn't there,
but I was determined.
And so I'd study six to seven
days a week relentlessly,
the same stuff
over and over and over again.
Because if it's a bad flight,
it's only on me.
So the contact point, then,
if you miss inside,
and tight is your m*ssile rail,
the boss is dead.
Okay.
Threat's just an incredible human being.
You want to learn from her.
And it's nice to know you have somebody
who wants you to get better.
Her goal is for 2023
to be even better than 2022.
But it seems like that's unachievable.
So I've been F-16s my whole career
in the Air Force.
I was in Japan for four years.
I was traveling around, uh, the Pacific,
putting on air shows
as a single-ship demo pilot.
My vice wing commander
used to actually be Thunderbird 1.
So he brought me into his office one day,
like, "Hey, Primo,
ever thought of being a Thunderbird?"
I was like, "No,
I don't wanna be a Thunderbird."
You know, the Thunderchickens.
There's the Prima Donnas
that wear tight flight suits.
But the more I got to talk to him,
the more I got to learn
about the actual mission.
And it's the hardest flying
I've ever done.
That was my first spark of, like,
I want to be a part of some sort of
team dynamic that is professional
and is a beacon of excellence.
Right now,
it feels like I take
one step forward [laughs]
maybe two steps back.
So hopefully, that's still moving forward.
I don't think mathematically it is.
I think it's moving backwards.
[ominous music playing]
[Astro] Blind trust
is the core motto of this team.
Blind trust is the ability to trust
that the people you're flying with
are gonna do their job, they'll do it
to the inch and so extraordinarily well
that you just have to worry
about flying your job to the inch.
[Slinga] Boss winds 3-2-0 at eight.
You are cleared for takeoff runway 3-4.
It's showtime!
[exciting music playing]
If you're the right wingman, for example,
your body's turned 90 degrees this way
because your plane of reference is
Thunderbird 1 on your right-hand side.
And so you're frozen
in this position for 40 minutes.
Lift that right bank,
get a little more fall.
[Reider] The wingmen don't know
where the ground and the sky are.
They only know where the boss is.
They trust him without reservation.
[indistinct dialog over radio]
[Astro] If number three is out of position
and four is flying blindly,
then four's gonna hit three.
Diamond ready now.
But we ask her to blindly trust
that three is gonna be in position.
If you don't have that blind trust,
the show will not work.
[Threat] We build that blind trust
through all the repetitions we do.
It takes training season to earn it.
[tense music playing]
[Astro] The Diamond Pass and Review,
it is the barometer for the team.
If you see the Diamond Pass and Review
fly by and it's asymmetric and spread out,
that team doesn't trust each other.
This Diamond Pass and Review
looks like the easiest maneuver
in the show to the crowd.
It's just the diamond flying by
in front of you from right to left.
But to make this maneuver work,
I actually have to aim to hit the ground
in front of the crowd.
And I'll hold that velocity vector
without flinching
with an aim point
that is going to hit the ground,
and the only reason it doesn't is
because number two slides into position,
creates enough lift under my left wing
that it actually rolls my jet slightly
and corrects that vector up in front
of the crowd to tag exactly 100 feet.
We cannot fly it
without complete trust in one another,
because once I call pull set,
either Zeke slides into position
or we hit the ground.
And unfortunately, we've been there.
In 1982,
a very important incident to the team,
it's kind of in all of our hearts,
it's called the Diamond Crash.
My parents live here in Hampton,
so I'm excited to be back in the area.
They're looking forward
to seeing the show.
[somber music playing]
[reporter] Four Thunderbird jet fighters
slammed into the desert floor
at speeds close to 400 miles per hour.
An amateur photographer took this picture
seconds after the crash.
The Thunderbirds were practicing
this spectacular formation.
The planes did not collide.
They simply flew straight into the ground.
Four men, including the Thunderbird
team commander, were k*lled.
[Astro] The commander leader
crashed his aircraft,
and the rest of the team members
stuck with him and crashed as well.
We lost the commander of the Thunderbirds,
number 2, 3, and 4,
that day, January 18th, '82.
The pilots on this team put absolute trust
in me as the formation leader.
A blind trust.
And that's the only way any of this works.
But I have to earn that trust,
because if I make a mistake,
we all pay the price.
So we're not gonna rush it.
I am Right now I'm flying
the diamond purr differently,
because I'm counting on your lift,
and it's not there right now.
Once I get you in a bit closer,
I will start pull setting,
basically to crash. I know
it sounds, like, morbid, but it's not.
-And then you will You will fix that.
-Mm-hmm.
So when you get in, it'll go rrrr!
And we'll And we'll climb.
[clears throat]
So no pressure.
[both laughing]
[Zeke] Uh, I was born in Illinois.
Uh, at a young age,
we moved down to Gainesville, Florida.
My parents got divorced
when I was at a young age.
My dad was addicted to drugs
and basically chose that life
and that lifestyle instead of his family.
I remember I was a freshman in high school
and we checked my dad into rehab
on Christmas.
And it was like,
"Man, this is This is bad."
And that, I think,
was the time that I was like, "Man, I"
"I do not want this for myself."
So I chose a different path and I pursued
aviation, all thanks to my grandfather.
He kind of instilled that in me.
[distant roar of engines]
[poignant music playing]
And the month prior to
my commission into the Air Force,
he was hospitalized.
We didn't know if he was gonna make it.
He was like, "I''m gonna be
at the University of Alabama,
and I'm gonna be his first salute."
And he was pretty sick. He made the trip
out to Columbus, Mississippi,
and got to put wings on my chest.
I remember him telling me,
he's like, "You're gonna do great."
"Every time you fly, look out your right
wing. I'll be riding on your right wing."
Um
I need a minute. [clears throat]
He passed away. I remember
I couldn't make it back to the funeral.
[clears throat]
I'm like, "All right, I'll take a picture
on the right wing before I fly."
So I climbed up, took a picture
on the right wing and was like,
"I got a new wingman."
[bittersweet music playing]
Every time I climb up the ladder,
I look out my right wing and say,
"Hey, Grandpa, like, hang on.
It's gonna be a hell of a ride,"
every single day.
[Slinga] All right, fix that spacing.
Winds aren't bad. No pitch.
As the ground-based evaluator
for the team,
my role is to tell the team
how they're gonna look to the crowd.
Decent roll.
TT bobble.
Nine right. Nice formation.
[over radio] Probably a slow first half.
I'm looking for symmetry.
Are the solos crossing offset from center?
Six high.
I want them to be pristine.
Ready now. Break ready now.
[whimsical music playing]
Pretty decent. Pretty decent.
[Jolley] As all of this continues,
we're gonna be watching it unfold here
as they approach certification coming up.
That's a big deal. It's not a given.
[Peterson] You know,
that looms really large.
And I know that
in Astro's mind it's there,
and in each of those pilots,
that's there too.
"Please don't let it be me
that screws this up."
Especially the newbies.
[Jolley] I mean, Primo,
criminal justice is what he studied.
I was trying to figure out
how these guys get into fighter jets.
He's studying criminal justice
and had to fly a jet.
The high b*mb burst is one of the most
difficult maneuvers of any air show,
and that's the one that we end it on.
All right, here we go.
[Astro over radio] 7,000 in nose,
coming up on 30, right on into four.
Standby to break. Let's break, ready now.
[dramatic music playing]
[Astro] Hold the line.
Two out, action.
[jet engine screeching]
[computer] Altitude, altitude.
[Knapp] Because we fly
so close to the ground,
we turned off the safety features
that would protect us
from hitting the ground.
-[computer] Warning. Warning.
-[Astro] Oh!
[computer] Pull up. Passing, passing.
Warning, warning.
[Primo breathing heavily over radio]
[loud whooshing]
[zooms]
[Astro] One mile.
[Slinga] Fix that spacing.
Smoke was a mess.
[Astro] Join it up, diamond.
[Knapp] In this maneuver, Primo is
not only gonna have to hold positive G,
but he's also gonna have to kick in
the rudder, which he gets lateral G,
so he's getting two different forces
on his body at the same time.
[Primo reporting indistinctly over radio]
[jet whining descends]
Come on, stay in there.
[breathing heavily]
[Slinga] Why is it
That rejoin line is too aggressive.
[Astro] 310, 320, 330.
[Slinga] Get on that line. Come on, Primo.
[Primo] Get on the line. Ah!
[Knapp] Hmm. Overshot the line.
[Slinga] Yeah.
-[Knapp] I think we should try another.
-Maybe.
[Knapp] So Primo actually
stays in this time.
[laughs]
[mechanism clanks]
[engines winding down]
[Astro] Okay, so this rejoin
is where it gets way late.
[Primo] Holy sh*t.
[Astro] Yeah, that is not a great picture.
Primo is struggling with the rejoin phase
of the high b*mb burst,
and that's that last phase
where he's conducting a 135-degree slice
upside-down while trying to find me
and rejoin to my wing,
all within a couple of seconds.
Can you back it up to the start of that?
I think you have too much G initially.
Because you want to float it slightly here
and then increase.
You kind of want it to be like
[whispers] Shoom.
[Primo] You know, as a newbie in the demo,
there's immense amount of pressure
to get this thing right.
Training season
is such a finite amount of time.
At the second rejoin, I get really low.
I don't know if I'm, like, too far away
on the outbound,
but then I don't want to pull seven Gs.
The reason the high b*mb burst
is particularly, um
just a challenge for everybody, um,
and is nostalgic for us is not
just because it's our primary maneuver,
but because the high b*mb burst
was our last fatal accident.
Um, in 2018, um,
we lost Major Cajun Del Bagno
in the high b*mb burst
and in that exact rejoin.
[solemn music playing]
[reporter] Some breaking news.
An Air Force Thunderbird pilot is dead
following a crash outside Las Vegas.
[reporter 2] An F-16 fighter jet has
crashed near Nellis Air Force Base.
[reporter 3] An F-16 crashed during
a routine training flight.
[reporter 4] It marks the third crash for
the Thunderbirds in less than two years.
[reporter 1] Nellis Air Force Base has
identified him as Major Stephen Del Bagno.
[reporter 4] The report says
that pilot Major Stephen Del Bagno
didn't input any flight controls
during a short period
as the plane barreled towards the ground.
[quiet, indistinct talking]
[sobbing]
[Joe Del Bagno] Everybody wants
their child to say "mom" or "dad" first.
Stephen, he was still a little tyke
and really hadn't said his first words.
And there's an airplane that flew over,
and he's pointing up in the sky.
"Airplane, airplane, airplane."
Really? You're gonna say "airplane."
You can't say mom. You can't say dad.
Airplane is a two syllable word.
Mom is one.
[laughs] Mom is one.
Dad is one, but he said, "Airplane."
[Joe] That was where everything
really started. He was, like,
what, two?
Two, three years old at that time.
[Stephen "Cajun" Del Bagno] What up, Pops?
It's just me calling to let you know
it's official-official now.
The entire, uh, Thunderbird team
called today to say that
I'm going to be the next Thunderbird 4.
Anyway, love you.
Hope you guys are having a good day.
Talk to you more soon. Take care. Bye.
[Joe] Pretty much was
a day like any other day.
I had gone off to work.
My IT manager came to my office and said,
"Joe, Joe, Joe, there was an accident
at Nellis Air Force Base in an F-16."
I go, "Okay, did they say 'Thunderbird'?"
And he said, "No."
I says, "Okay, then I'm feeling
pretty good about the fact that
it's not a Thunderbird, so Stephen's okay,
we're gonna be just fine."
I get a call from Cindy. Um
"There's-there's two suits at the door.
What do I do?"
[Cindy] Joe wasn't home,
but I had to bring them in the house.
They had a hard enough job to do.
The clergyman was great
because he held me and he let me cry.
[sobbing] The officer did a great job
maintaining his composure.
How they can do it is beyond me.
Never in a million years did I think
Stephen would die in an airplane.
I mean, he was so, so meticulous
and so thorough
on everything with his flying.
I mean,
I would've seen him stepping off a curb,
tripping and hitting his head before I
would've thought he'd die in an airplane.
[Joe] In the investigation,
it wasn't determined
that Stephen did anything wrong.
[Cindy] It was the high b*mb burst rejoin.
The difference in the amount of Gs,
it knocked him out.
And he was too close
to the ground to recover.
And so his trajectory in was,
I think they said that
it was a 90-degree angle.
We-we knew there wasn't much of him left.
It's the worst thing in the world.
You know, you expect
you're gonna say goodbye to your parents,
but you don't ever expect
to say goodbye to your child.
[engines whooshing]
[Bobby "Swag" Gulla] Coming right now
is what's called the pitch.
And that is the signal that the show's
over and they're coming in to land.
Next thing we'll hear
is the landing codes.
Landing codes will come in, uh,
one through six in that order.
Um, and that just gives maintenance
the heads-up on what we need to work.
[Slinga] Thunderbirds are back on deck.
One is code two.
FLCS single fail will not clear.
[Threat] Good run.
Welcome to the flight line, where
everything starts and everything ends
for the demonstration
and all jets in the Air Force.
That's where work happens.
We have maintainers, jets, oil, gas,
and a lot of blood, sweat and tears.
We understand that we don't have
the most alluring job in the world.
You're in the belly of the beast.
It's brash, but when your name
goes on the side of the jet,
and you're the dedicated crew chief,
that means something.
It's not just six demo pilots.
There's 130-some-odd people
in this squadron
working tirelessly and effortlessly
to make the job happen.
I've spent more time with an aircraft
than I have with my family and friends.
You want the aircraft to be the best.
You want it to be the best looking,
to be the best flying, the go-to jet.
That's your baby.
It's game time when it comes out here.
One major mistake
could mean life or death.
Although these jets are maintained
to the highest standards,
sometimes things do go wrong.
[engine roaring]
[loud rumbling]
[loud bang]
[loud bang]
The ejection seat in an aircraft
is an incredibly awesome safety feature.
You know, it allows us to get away from
an aircraft that is moving very, very fast
and have a parachute to save our lives.
But it's an incredibly violent way
to leave an airplane.
Pulling a handle that is lighting
a rocket motor underneath you
and can get upwards of 20 to 25 times
the force of gravity
as it launches you out of that airplane
So with Miami,
he had an ejection a few years ago.
He ended up losing
an entire inch of height.
Deep breath in.
His muscles are
all shorter than they should be.
And over time, that will actually calcify
and cause, like,
significant muscle knotting in his back.
And all those compressive forces
continually make it worse.
Because you guys are doing the Gs,
you're always under compression.
So, just, honestly,
one of the simplest things you can do
is, you're just gonna relax,
just kind of gently
pull that leg down that's shorter.
Any pain there at all?
[Miami] Uh
Other than me being not flexible at all.
[both laughing]
[Angry] I know,
I need to do more yoga too. [laughs]
Ejections have a tremendous
physical and mental impact on a pilot.
Getting back into the jet
after one ejection is a miracle.
But if a pilot has to eject twice,
that will likely be
the end of their flying career.
[Miami] The first time
I landed after that,
my hands were, like,
shaking uncontrollably.
It was definitely a hurdle
I had to get over.
But one of the main people that
helped me out was Thunder, number five.
He specifically was always there for me.
[Thunder] I went to his room,
asked him if he needed groceries.
Just talked to him because
it had been a very traumatic event.
That was, like, my first introduction to
the type of people that are on this team.
Honestly, though,
the first 180 degrees of turn
looked real nice as far as
altitude control. So I started at 340.
[Astro] Thunderbird 5
is the other instructor role on the team
because they're in their second year
and they flew six last year.
[Thunder] Ready, hit it!
The way I like to instruct is more visual,
being able to use the GPX lines,
to show where I'm at to make timing.
We're always under a little bit of,
like, the "I'm gonna die" factor,
but that keeps your adrenaline running
and really focused.
[jet whistling and whooshing]
[pilot] Like this!
Rule number one, don't hit the diamond.
Number two, don't hit the ground.
Rule number three, don't hit me.
[all laughing]
[young Astro] Here's a C-130 Hercules.
We saw these drop jumpers today.
It's huge.
It's got the wheels in that little part.
I always liked that kind of design there.
[plane engine roaring]
Well, this is it.
This is pretty much the best
you possibly can get.
You got airplanes flying over.
[woman laughing] Who's that guy?
[all laughing]
There's a new level of cool.
Yeah.
[all laughing]
-[Astro] Wow.
-Oh.
-[laughing] Wow.
-What a camera angle.
Great photography.
[woman] This house was full of airplanes.
Out in that garage
was just a whole setup of models.
Every spare second,
it was, get the homework done as fast as
he could on the way home from school
because he was going out there
to build airplanes.
And as a little boy, Kevin also took him
down there all the time to NASA.
So he grew up with that.
It was just, like, in the veins.
"I'm gonna be an astronaut."
[Kevin Elliott]
As a four-year-old in preschool,
his teacher asked him to draw a picture
there of something in space.
Wow, this is really different.
Four-year-olds, the sky is blue.
He knew that space was black.
And that space shuttle
became a theme for him.
But he just kind of never let it go.
[all making whooshing noises]
[all laughing]
-[Astro imitating crash]
-[making whooshing sounds]
[Victoria] When I first met him,
he told me that he intended
to become an astronaut.
And I was thinking, "Good luck, buddy."
[laughs] Nice dreaming.
[Astro] NASA astronauts are mostly
Air Force or Navy fighter pilots,
specifically test pilots.
And so I knew that
if I wanted to go to space,
this is what I had to do with my life.
So I went to weapons school
and then went to test pilot school,
graduated a year later
as one of only three people that I know of
who graduated from both of
the elite flying courses in the Air Force.
I was certain I knew
what I was gonna do with my life.
-Your planes are back in line.
-All right.
As it narrows down from
18,000 initial applicants to 1,000,
got down-selected again to 120.
Approaching my son's first birthday
in February, I got called back
to the second round of interviews,
which was down to 40 to 50 at that point,
and became an astronaut finalist.
And that was surreal.
Like, I really, at that point thought,
wow, I've made it this far.
There's a chance.
Like, I might just make it.
Until I got a call from my friend, Brick,
the commander of the Thunderbirds.
When it came to my replacement,
I had a lot of thoughts on that.
And the most important factor is
who is Thunderbird 1?
Who is leading the team?
Because they will set the culture.
They will set, kind of, the, uh
The overall character of the squadron.
It was very important
that we got this right.
[children clamoring]
He said, "Hey, Astro, I want you to think
about applying to take this team."
And I said, "Absolutely not."
[both whooshing]
The NASA application had been launched.
I was close to starting interviews.
I knew what my future held,
and it wasn't air demonstration.
As a flight surgeon, my main job is, one,
be able to fly, understand the pilots,
keep them safe.
But one of my favorite jobs
that I get to do during the air shows,
I run something called The Shine.
Boss and the solos
can use our signals from a light g*n
to line up perfectly
on the line every time.
I thought for sure that would totally
[indistinct]
When you're going 600 miles an hour,
sometimes he'll only have a split second
or an instant to look back over his
shoulder and find that one little light
and go, hey, yeah, that's the one
I'm going for. Line up on the line.
[Slinga] Pitchy entry, three.
[Slinga] Nice conditions. Come on, Primo.
You got this, baby.
At this point in the training season,
I'm starting to see some frustrations.
You know, they have that one kind of
thorn-in-their-side maneuver
that they just can't seem
to get over the hump on.
All right, y'all,
let's make this one happen.
Come on,
let's see some progress on this one.
Let's make ready now.
All right, I like it, I like it.
And pull.
[computer] Pull up. Pull up.
[Slinga] That's pretty.
Take the lead, come on.
Yes, outstanding.
[Astro] 330, 340, 350,
360, 370.
[Slinga] He's behind.
Come on, catch up!
His rejoin angle was off.
[Primo] It's the most
frustrating thing I've ever done.
I just can't get the rejoin down.
[Astro] Show center.
[Slinga] Don't worry about symmetrics.
Let's just get there timely.
Fight, fight, fight.
Come on, catch up.
Uh
Wide.
[Threat] You have too much G.
Instead of rejoining on him,
rejoin on where you think he'll be.
[Slinga] Come on, stay in there.
Don't fall back, come on.
What's going on here?
The rejoin lines are mismatched.
Whoa, whoa, whoa now.
I keep over rolling on the top. And then
the rejoins are still trash. Three.
[Slinga] Little low, little low. Come on.
Show center. Slow.
[Threat] It's because
you're 1,000 feet low,
which really changes
your slice and G.
It's a thing. There's always a thing.
We just don't know which one it'll be
and who's gonna have it.
[Slinga] This one is yours, baby.
Go get it.
Fight, fight, fight.
Get strong. Do it.
Left, left.
Come on.
He had it.
[engines winding down]
[Astro] So this week
has been an eventful one.
We had two safeties happen back-to-back,
where the aircraft and people
are actually in jeopardy.
-[Astro speaking indistinctly]
-[Zeke] Two.
-[Primo] Three.
-[Threat] Four.
Yeah, I'm feeling all of those bumps.
Don't know if they'll show in the tape,
but I'm just like
[Zeke] So we're all stacked.
We turn. It's one, two, three and four.
So I'm, like, tucked up
very close underneath Boss.
I felt unsafe being that close to Boss
with my current skill levels.
So I had a really big ease into Primo.
[Astro] And set timer and down.
[Primo] Whoa Oh, sh*t.
And our wingtips were
I don't want to know how close.
Primo just had no option
but to eject himself out of the formation.
And we just watched it over
and over and over again in the debrief.
[Threat]
To the best of your ability, Zeke,
try and stabilize your wings with Boss.
But you see, even that little ease
that you had there, um,
again, absorb what you can absorb.
And then if you can't absorb it,
move, and
[Zeke] It felt personal that I put Primo
in such a dangerous position.
It's something you go home
and think about, man, that was close.
That could have been catastrophic
for all of us,
which is not something
you want to think about
going to work the next day.
All right, everybody who's watching
the video, thank you for taking the time
to-to take a look at
the new show sequence. We decided
[Brick] When I showed up
to the team in August of 2018,
we'd just had a series
of three Class A mishaps.
We had one that had a fatality
associated with it.
I was very interested
in the history of the team.
I had a drawer that had
a bunch of old documents
dating all the way back into the,
you know, early '90s, into the '80s.
And one day
I just started reading through it.
I slowly started to build a picture
of previous versions of the team.
We had kind of drifted off in some areas
that we were unaware of.
[John Jumper] When accidents
or near misses happened,
the leadership was spring-loaded
to just raise the altitudes
and spread the formations out.
[Astro] Sometimes it's very difficult
to see culture creeping
in the wrong direction
in an organization.
Sometimes it's not.
And for about the last 20 years,
this is what the Diamond Pass in Review
looks like for the Thunderbirds.
It's asymmetric.
It's out of position. It's wide.
That's never what
this institution was meant to be.
[Kelly] A layperson would look at it
and say, "Well, aircraft are safer
when further away from each other,"
which makes sense.
Aircraft are safer
when they're further from the ground.
But when Brick took a step back,
he came to the theory,
we can actually execute a better show
by actually being closer to each other,
not only better optically,
but better safer.
It's not inherently obvious.
He saw that the further we push,
the harder we push,
and the more we aim for precision,
the safer we fly.
Because at that level,
it's all you can focus on.
And so I really, really focused
on making the demo more difficult to fly
as opposed to easier to fly.
The order, the methodology.
We have to fly close, we have to fly low,
and we have to find a way to do it safely.
I knew it wasn't gonna happen overnight.
And so my concern was that once I left,
there may be an effort
to try to undo some of these things.
We needed somebody who was gonna take
that mantle and continue pressing forward.
Somebody who's got the tactical sense
of, like, a weapons school graduate,
the physics and aerodynamic sense
of a test pilot school graduate.
Well, those people don't exist.
Well, one existed.
[Astro] As that project grew
in my own mind,
I started to realize everything
the Air Force had given me.
Sending me to weapons school
to be a pinnacle instructor,
sending me to test pilot school
to understand the nuances of
Of precision flying.
To the point that it began to feel selfish
to pursue my childhood dream
when there was this potential
for enormous impact
in reforming a team
that could inspire the entire country.
It just felt like
it was time to give back.
So I left the flight line,
went straight back to my office,
and sat down and wrote the most difficult
email I've ever written,
and said that
I had to withdraw my application
because I had been selected to be
Thunderbird 1 for the US Air Force.
Yeah, it was so close.
It was so close that I was already
picturing how amazing it would be
to-to get to realize this dream.
[Jolley] Let's take a moment
and talk about the Daytona 500.
We have an opportunity
coming up here for a lot of fans
who are not air show fans
to see the team.
[Kaity "Agent" Butler]
Daytona's a big deal for us.
The Thunderbirds have flown
the Daytona 500 flyover
12 consecutive years in a row,
13 times total.
It's technically mid-training season,
so there's actually been
a lot of controversy
on whether or not
we should even be doing it.
Do we interrupt our training to go do
this massive national public event?
There's a week of press.
It's huge for the team.
So it is very positive on the one hand,
but it interrupts
the middle of our training season.
And all of it's before we're certified.
[Jolley] This is a big deal for them
to do the flyover
during the national anthem
of the Daytona 500.
[Reider] And before certification.
It's not an air show.
[Jolley] And unlike an air show
where you have your local audience,
the whole world
-is watching the Daytona 500.
-[Reider] Is watching.
[Jolley] No pressure.
[Astro] And we're expected to hit
the national anthem at the "B" in "brave,"
at exactly that microsecond.
And we're supposed to split
the "C" and the "E" in "world center."
We're expected to hit
within inches and microseconds
for our first ever public appearance.
[announcer] Here to perform
today's national anthem,
please welcome platinum artist
and songwriter Breland.
As soon as that guy's established,
give Boss a warm fuzzy
and reiterate the TOT.
O say can you see
By the dawn's early light
What so proud
Let's start it at 10.
This is five seconds less 40.
[Primo] On time, boss.
[Astro] 330 and holding.
Whose broad stripes and bright stars
TOT Bravo, one nine four eight four five.
-[Astro] Copy that.
-[Slinga] Little power back.
[Astro] 300.
And the rocket's red glare
[Slinga] Five second slip.
[Astro] It'll turn a bit.
[Slinga] Five nine one five new TOT.
One minute.
Push it up, Boss. Five seconds late.
[Astro] Easing forward just a bit, 340.
O say, does
Smoke on, ready now.
Banner yet wave
[Knapp] He's off his splits.
[Slinga] Push it up, Boss.
Ten seconds late.
Of the free
[Astro] We're gonna miss it.
It's too late.
Of the brave
[crowd cheering and whistling]
[man] Let's hear it
for Breland's performance
-[Astro] Show center.
-[man] of our national anthem.
Along with the United States Air Force
Thunderbirds for today's flyover.
I missed the time when he started at 47
because I was trying to freaking add.
-[Jolley] Nobody likes that.
-No.
[Jolley] The organizers
don't like it and the teams don't like it.
You cringe going,
"Oh, dear God, the race'll be
over by the time they get here."
[Reider laughing]
[Astro] The Thunderbirds
have been training to hit maneuvers
with fractions of seconds.
And today we missed the national anthem
by 10 seconds.
We got some things to work on.
[Primo] Boss is pissed.
The team is pissed.
[sighs] Yeah.
You feel that burden
of the huge mistake for the flyover.
You fail as a team,
and it is tough to do when
certification is right around the corner.
And, you know,
I still feel like I'm behind.
Stand by the break.
Let's break. Ready now.
Smoke on.
And rejoin.
Roll. Power.
Three's gotcha.
Mill. Roll. Pull.
Boss up there.
Rudder in. Forwards as required.
And we're in.
["Break the Chains"
by Raphael Lake playing]
[Jolley] All right, well, you know
who we have on the show today?
We have the new number 3.
You're learning the ropes
as a member of the diamond.
I mean,
what's going through your head right now?
[Primo on broadcast] It's I'll tell you,
demonstration flying is humbling.
Imagination
Where have you gone?
Or has the train left the station?
Here it's just strictly repetition.
You have to keep making the same mistake
until it clicks.
[Astro] Traveling down.
Wing tips facing.
[Slinga] We're only as strong as
our weakest link.
Everybody's gonna struggle.
But it's how do you handle
the difficult times.
[Miami] It's really hard to see progress
when you're double turning
six times a week.
You're just grinding,
trying to fly your best.
A little bit early. And then being fast
also doesn't help. So
[Reider] You're waiting
for the breakthrough.
[Peterson] Went through
three or four planes
before I learned to put the wheels down.
[Reider laughing]
Holy sh*t. He's looking at Boss.
He's, like, he's doing it. He's doing it.
[Slinga] I like it.
Pretty decent.
[Jolley] Certification's coming,
it's a team effort.
So is that adding pressure to this?
[Primo] It's a lot of pressure.
[Astro] Welcome back, everybody.
Objectives were
[exclaims]
Yeah, I think we did a little bit better
than first go.
It never gets easy enough to be confident
about where you're at.
It's gonna be easy at this point to want
to rest on how hard we've worked so far.
But that's not what we're gonna do.
Because that's not
what the Thunderbirds do.
This brand is what it's all about.
We are always concerned
that we won't get across the finish line
by the time
we get to COMACC certification.
[pilots laughing]
[Threat] I'm dying right now.
[Astro] There's a bit of
a game going on here.
[pilot chuckles]
[Astro] You try to grab the person next
to you's hand right at the salute pop.
Okay, let's, uh
Let's play it through one time.
[all laughing]
[Zeke] Missed!
[Astro] Oh man. Zeke, though.
This is amazing.
[all laughing]
You're our 2023 Thunderbird.
[laughter continues]
[Knapp] Hey, Tamayo! Come here.
Can you hold that far side of the ISA?
Help him stay to stable.
This week's been pretty rough so far.
We had a, uh, right stab servo fail.
[indistinct dialog]
Tamayo, you wanna give me
some snippers or d*kes or something?
So right now it's wind chill
probably about 10 to 15 degrees.
Tonight's gonna be a long night.
They could be here one, two a.m.
It got dark real quick.
And it got cold real quick.
You're tired, you're cold,
you're hungry.
You just want to go home and go to bed.
But if we want that jet to fly tomorrow,
it's gonna fly tomorrow.
[exhales]
[man on recording] 280.
[Primo] So he's about,
like, 130 slice back.
[Threat] Yeah.
That's a function
of how far laterally offset you are.
'Cause now that you've seen Boss do that,
like, maneuver a few times,
you know where he's going, right?
-Yeah.
-That's why I always ask Boss, like,
"Hey, what line are you gonna be on?"
So I know what line he's taking, so that
when I'm rejoining here,
I can, like, see where he's going.
[Primo] Yeah, we're a few days away
from certification,
and I feel like, you know,
I'm still not at the point
where I need to be for the high BB.
And you don't want to be the guy
that is the reason the team fails.
I just don't think I have enough altitude.
Don't think about it too much, you know?
-I'm not thinking about it.
-You're doing too much.
As long as you don't hit the ground,
it helps a little.
[Primo] Or do.
It'd be a quick way to fix it.
[Astro] It's all numbers.
We're at the end of winter training.
So tomorrow we have our certification from
the commander of Air Combat Command
who will decide whether we are good enough
to represent the United States Air Force.
All the training that we've put into this
comes together starting tomorrow.
Okay. Pull set.
There. Put that there.
-[sniffs]
-[quiet, tense music playing]
[child murmuring]
You want to see ducky?
-Mm-hmm.
-[Victoria] Mm-hmm.
If I'm being really honest,
this time has brought us
closer in some ways,
but further apart in other ways too.
It is very exhausting.
But that is why service in the military
is truly a family service.
[Astro] We have engine start
in four minutes.
So eat what you have down there
[Victoria] No,
I made the one that has the
Your burrito is the one that doesn't have
[Astro] Whatever it is,
engine start in four minutes
[Victoria] Things fall apart a lot.
And we put one foot in front of another
and we get to the next point.
[Declan] Revan, stop it!
-[Victoria] No, DeeDee, can you just
-[Astro] Boys, come down and eat.
[Victoria] Okay, go ahead and talk, but
[Astro] Give Dad a hug. Dada has to go.
Come on.
I think anyone in this position
would question,
am I doing damage here
that I can't recover from?
-That's okay. Dad
-[Victoria] Your soldiers are gonna fight
Dada will fight it off. Come here.
Dada loves you very much.
And I hope I'm right, when I say,
"No, we're gonna be just fine."
[Slinga] Ten.
Five, four, three point six
-Launch us.
-[Slinga] two,
one.
-Hack, Boss.
-All right, hack. Welcome everybody.
We are stepping at 9:40.
We'll march at 9:50.
We're on Delta 62 today
for COMACC certification.
We'll take off at 18:10.
Our objectives today are to put on
an outstanding high show
for our leadership
to show what this team is capable of.
We have one opportunity
to now go from being really, really good
to perfect,
have the best game of your life.
[Primo] I've put so much work into this,
and you have one shot at it.
It's just a different amount of pressure.
[Miami] The most important thing
to all of us
is we wanna make this team
the best it can be.
Everyone just wants each individual
on the team to do their best.
[Slinga] Start one, ready now.
Canopy tower to ready now.
[Jolley] Well, today's the big day. It is
certification day for the Thunderbirds.
We've come down to that big moment,
you've checked all the boxes,
you're good to go on the road or not.
All eyes today are gonna be
on our buddy, Primo.
The past two to three months
of training season,
living through blood, sweat
and tears as a team,
comes down to today.
[Astro] Standby, smoke,
smoke everything now.
Thunderbirds, release everything now.
Burners now.
-[dramatic music playing]
-[engines booming]
[Slinga] Little power back.
Diamond is approaching from the right.
For your 2023 Diamond Pass in Review.
[Kelly] It's a signature Thunderbird
maneuver. The optics are key.
I'm most concerned
about the safety aspects.
[Astro] Smoke on ready now.
Pull set.
[announcer] From your right, Major Katz,
and from your left, Major Tise.
Inbound for show center at a closing speed
of over 1,000 miles per hour.
[Kelly] They're working on a razor's edge.
Does it happen 100 feet left?
Does it happen 100 feet right?
The 100,000 people watching will notice.
[Astro] Ready, set.
All set, diamond
[announcer] Look to your left
as the diamond approaches
for the high b*mb burst.
[Astro] This is the one, team. Go get it!
Easy forward.
Little power up.
[Kelly] They've gotta show up at the exact
same place at the exact same time.
[Astro] Standby, about break.
Let's break ready now.
Two miles action.
[breathes deeply]
[Slinga] Looking good,
looking good. Saddle it.
[Astro] One mile.
[Slinga] There you go. Great stuff.
All right, Primo, all eyes on you.
[Astro] Show me your talent.
One's on top. Five, two, two, three.
[breathing heavily]
[Slinga] Fight, fight, fight.
Finish strong, baby.
Get in there. Come on.
Come on, Primo. Get on that line.
[Astro] Line's at 300. 310.
[Slinga] His line is off.
[Astro] 330, 340
[Slinga] Close the gap.
[Astro] 350, 360, 370.
[Slinga] Get there. Go on.
[jets approaching]
[Astro] Show center.
[dramatic music playing]
[jets screaming]
-[Astro] Hold the balance.
-[Threat] You got this.
[pilots cheering]
[Astro] Yes! Awesome.
[Threat] Three steps forward,
one step back,
three steps forward, one step back.
Primo dealt with learning
the high BB rejoin.
Absolutely, I was proud of him.
I love Primo.
[inaudible]
[Kelly] A three-floor elevator version
of how it went today,
and I think folks would say,
best we've ever done.
Really, really impressive show.
I think I've seen more Thunderbird tapes
than any human alive.
And so in 40 years, I've seen, uh,
the team at its best and at its worst.
You are the best version
of yourselves right now.
Never been better.
Sorry.
[clears throat]
[Astro] All good.
America needs more of you.
We're at the top of our game.
Go out and present yourself as you are,
and you will make more people like you.
Okay, with that, um, you guys are
certified for 23, and you'll do great.
You'll do great.
[Kelly] Team 23's certification
was the best I'd seen
-during my time as the ACC commander.
-[whooping]
A lot of the work that had gone in
not just months, but years prior,
came to fruition.
[Brick] I'm proud that we were able
to connect the past with the present,
but also to tie it to the future.
I'm just one of the contributors
that's gonna take us
to where I want the team to be,
which is perfection,
which is an elite team,
which is the golden era
of the Thunderbirds is out there.
It's in front of us,
we've got to keep driving towards it.
[engines winding down]
[crowd chattering]
[Reider] Somehow
he answered our call again.
[Peterson] Yes.
-Hi, Primo, how are you?
-[Reider] Can't believe it.
We know the team was certified,
which must mean
you got it done
or they did it without you.
[all laughing]
[Primo] I'm fantastic,
and no, Rick, I didn't ground abort.
I flew the certification.
[Jolley] For the record,
I never doubted you for a minute.
-Rob and Rick did.
-[Peterson laughs]
[Jolley] But listen,
Team Primo right here.
["Push on Through" by Daniel Farrant
and James Knight playing]
[announcer] From Nellis Air Force Base
in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada,
America's ambassadors in blue.
[all] Thunderbirds! [cheering]
[crowd cheers]
[announcer] Are you all ready
for the Thunderbirds?
Every day I look at you
-Makes me cry to see you blue
-See you blue
Only thing for me to do
[Zeke speaking indistinctly]
To make you believe all I want is
[Jolley] We see a lot of these teams.
This team in particular
The chemistry and the camaraderie
that has come together with this team
is just really, really special.
[Peterson] And it's carried right
into the performances.
[Jolley] That's right.
That all translates.
[cheering and applause]
Fight the good fight, yeah
Remember I'll be next to you
When you push on through
[Peterson] Across America, anywhere from
the Pacific Show in Huntington Beach
to the East Coast,
and all the crisscrossing that went on
What I like about the Thunderbirds show
is the showmanship,
the inspiration to the youngsters
that they spend the time to connect with
at the fence line.
Take my hand and follow me
Oh, I, I wanna
[Astro] Dudes, that was awesome.
I'm confident that was
the best show we've ever flown.
[Jolley] They all love what they do.
But being on the road
250 plus days a year,
after the second year, they are ready
to come back to a more normal life.
Live a little
Fight the good fight, yeah
[Astro] You know,
the demonstration that you see
may look like six pilots
flying loops with smoke on.
The reality is, what it takes
is moving 130 people across the country
to two different cities every week.
I wanna give a huge round of applause
to my team for everything they've done.
[applause]
I'll be next to you
[jet engines roar]
When you push on through
You got to push on through
You got to push on through
[Astro] Welcome, everybody.
Team 23, last show.
This is crazy.
I put a picture up there for you
that I knew I'd use someday.
I took this picture
on Monday of training season,
the very first flight that we all
were in the same room together.
It's kind of amazing
to look back at that day
and then fast-forward a year
to how unbelievably good we are
at this demonstration right now.
So I want you all to just take a step back
and process what's about to happen.
Uh, you are the best
in the world
at what you do.
It's just amazing.
So, keep that in mind
and have fun with this one, all right?
Okay, let's get after it. You guys ready?
-[pilot sneezing]
-There it is.
-Ready, Boss.
-[clears throat]
My God, just, moment destroyed.
All right. [laughs]
Well, this is it.
As I say goodbye to America's team
for the last time,
for me,
this is very much a time of reflection
and of gratitude.
In the United States, we are able to
create very real value out of inspiration,
out of ideas.
Our value, the Thunderbirds' value,
lies in the inspiration of all Americans.
[Cindy] If you're afraid
to put yourself out there,
to take risks in life,
you're gonna end up doing nothing.
And he loved what he was doing.
He impacted a lot of people's lives.
[Joe] I still play golf,
and, uh,
I've traded my clubs for his clubs.
So every day I get to play with him,
and that's one of the ways
that I've kind of coped with it.
[Cajun] You know, as an individual,
we don't really do much.
But when we get the 130 members together,
that makes up the Thunderbirds.
[Astro] We leave it all on the field,
and do it for nothing more than an idea,
but a very, very important idea.
[stirring music playing]
Success as a squadron commander
is a very different thing than
how close did you fly,
how low did you get the formations
in front of the crowd.
Success for me
as Thunderbird 1 will mean that
the next version of the team
is better than ours.
Welcome to the Thunderbirds.
We're built around blind trust,
and throughout the training season,
we're gonna earn that blind trust
as a team.
We're only as strong as the weakest link.
It is an absolute miracle
when a team pushes beyond the status quo.
One pilot decides not to push
for inches anymore, and it's broken.
My path to getting here
is probably not what you would expect.
I'm a trailer park kid from Florida.
If they could just see themselves
in me at all
You can overcome anything in life,
and I'm just living proof of that.
[engines roaring]
Yeah.
I always thought
that if you could shape this team right,
you would create a culture that inspires
everyone in this country and beyond
to do extraordinary things
for the right reasons.
[all cheering]
[Primo] You know,
he built a team this year
that's flown the best demonstration
that's ever been seen.
I would follow him into battle.
[Astro] Before I hand this team to Sheik
and the next generation of Thunderbirds,
let me reinforce for you all
one more time.
The Thunderbirds are nothing
if they are not extraordinary.
[jets roaring]
Okay, guys, so here's the game plan.
Declan, you're gonna stand
right behind your plane.
Okay, this is Thunderbird 3's position.
You're in stripes aligned.
Very safe takeoff position.
Revan, this is you.
You're behind your plane.
You're Thunderbird 2.
-Stand here.
-[Victoria] Relegated to the back.
You are the slot. You're Thunderbird 4.
When I called
and removed my application from NASA,
it was effectively
the end of a childhood dream, um,
one that had driven me to everything
I had achieved to that point in my life.
At that moment, it was all gone.
[producer] Do you think you're looking
for reassurance that it was worth it?
[laughs]
Maybe.
Um
Yeah, it would be great to know
if I made the right decision.
I don't know that I ever will.
The, um
This job has been the most rewarding job
I've ever done in my life, though.
And
I actually cannot imagine my life
without this job.
And I am happy with that decision,
as hard as it is
to look at what could've been.
I think I'll always look at my friends
that made the astronaut board
and watch them go to the moon and Mars
and wonder if I could've been there.
Standby, smoke. Smoking ready now.
Thunderbirds, release brakes ready now.
Burners now.
-[Astro laughing]
-[Victoria] Oh! Oh!
Oh, no!
[all laughing]
[Victoria] You know, we raise our children
with a lot of different goals.
Service above self, so important, so hard.
I think that this next one's
gonna be perfect.
[Victoria] And I think
that Revan and Declan,
even though they may not be processing
everything right now,
they will have a better understanding
of what this time was
and is about when they get older
and be a better person for it.
[Astro] I think the only way to fix this
is for Mama to lead.
Burners ready now!
[Astro laughing]
Oh no, I'm dead. Oh!
-[Victoria] Oh!
-That was the best formation of the day.
Of everything that we've built together,
I am most proud
of this team's giving posture.
I have a team of 130 people
who give more than they take.
I wish I could replicate it
through everything else
we do in this country right now.
-[Revan] I forgot the first part.
-[Astro] Standby, smoke.
[Revan] Standby, smoke.
Smoking ready now. Smoking ready now.
Release brakes ready now.
Burners now. Yeah!
[Astro] We got it. We're going.
Oh, that was the best one. Oh!
-Oh!
-Oh no!
[inspirational music playing]
[poignant music playing]
[Astro] I don't know how else to say this
other than thanks.
You deserve closure and
to close this chapter of your life out.
And you are gonna get that closure
in about two years,
because you're gonna be Thunderbird 3.
-[people in background] Yeah!
-Oh!
[man] Yes, dude!
[Astro] Look at the team.
[all cheering and whooping]
[rousing music playing]
[soft music playing]
[music fades out]
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