Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is
Michelle Curran, callsign Mace. Curran served in the US Air Force for thirteen
years, serving as a fighter pilot and ultimately as a lead solo pilot for
the prestigious Air Force Thunderbirds. She was also now an author. Her brand
new children's book is entitled Upside Down Dreams and encourages all girls to reach for
their biggest dreams. And Mace, thanks so much for being with us.
Yeah, absolutely, it's pleasure. Where were you born and raised? So?
I was born and raised in a small town northern Wisconsin called Medford.
It's about four thousand people. Was there a history of military service in your
family? Not a lot. So my grandpa was actually a lieutenant in World
War Two, and so he was all across the world in the Pacific on
a boat. He had some incredible stories that I heard secondhand, since he
passed away when I was about two years old, so I don't actually have
any memory of him. But one threat that was there. He had his
naval trunk that had Lieutenant Kerns stamped down the end of it, and it
was at my grandma's house, and when I was a kid growing up,
I saw that as like this treasure chest of adventure, Like I would open
it and just the things that were in there were so exciting to me.
There were photos from all over the world. There was his pipe, his
glasses, his uniforms, letters he had written to my grandma, And so
there wasn't a direct tie there where I was having conversations about him, and
there wasn't anyone in my family that was still living. But I think that
definitely got me intrigued about the opportunities and the ability to travel and see the
world that the military could provide. How did you first develop your interest in
flying? So it was later. I was a very adventurous, thrill seeking
kid, but not coming from a military family, and then not an aviation
Asian family either. I just didn't have a lot of exposure to that world.
And as I got closer to college, my parents were like, Hey,
you have really good grades, but we don't have a college fund for
you. Let's look at ways you can pay for education. Let's look at
scholarship opportunities. And my dad actually had seen the ROTC Cadets when he was
in college he's I think you should look into this. There might be opportunities
there, and I think you would actually really do well in that program.
And initially I was resistant. I wanted to be a normal college kid or
what in my probably seventeen year old brain at the time thought a normal college
kid did, and I didn't see how the military fit into that. But
after a little bit of exploration, it ended up being a good fit and
I realized all the opportunities that could come from it beyond just the free education.
So once I was in ROTC, though, I was a criminal justice
major, because my whole plan was to do four years to pay back the
time for the education, probably doing like special investigations osi that kind of thing,
and then get out and go to the FBI. That was kind of
my career goal as a young college student. But about halfway through, we
went on a base visit down to Tindall Air Force Base in Florida, and
I got to see there's actually two F fifteens taking off at dusk and full
afterburner, and I was standing on the ramp and that was like the first
time I had been up close around high performance aircraft, and it was just
a transformative experience for me. It was jaw dropping. I got goosebumps,
and I was just like, how do I go do that? And that's
where it all started. It's just kind of an awesome moment. Or was
there just the idea that somebody can do that with a plane that just mesmerized
you. I think it had always been one of those things that intrigued me
a little bit, just like the how exciting it looked. I just loved
roller coasters. I loved going upside down, I had gone skydiving. I
just really liked that those kinds of things, and it seemed like a career
filled where you could do that type of stuff for a living. That's hindsight,
being twenty twenty, that is a very naive view of it, because
turns out the flying of the airplane is very high performance and it is like
a roller coaster, but that's just such a small portion of the skill you
have to have to actually be a good fighter pilot, which I dealt with
figuring out and learning all of that later, But my initial reaction was kind
of just one of wanting to go after that excitement. Now, there had
been plenty of female combat pilots I believe by the time you were commissioned,
But did you have any hesitation about going into that? And because it was
still generally a male dominated field, I think as far as my role as
a fighter pilot and gender it, my view went through kind of three phases.
So when I decided I wanted to do it, I didn't really think
about it, like I was just like, this is what I want to
do. And the fact that I was going to be one of only like
there's about three percent of fighter pilots in the Air Force that are women,
so I'm one of a handful, it didn't really of course I was aware
of it, but it didn't really affect my decision either way. I was
like, Oh, this isn't a big deal. It's open to us.
There's been several that have followed before me or gone before me, Like,
this isn't a big deal. Then as I got into my pilot training class
and I was the only woman in class of twenty five, it was highlighted
to me a lot. And then as I got a fighter spot, which
only two fight aircraft were available to our class of twenty five, so I
was standing out among my peers, which put me under a microscope even more.
And as I got to the F sixteen B course where we spend a
year learning to fly that aircraft specifically, I was one of two, and
then same was one of two. When I got to my first combat squadron,
it just was highlighted to me again and again, everything from just comments
people would make and nothing that was like them intentionally trying to be like to
exclude me or to be mean. It was just like subtle little things that
I noticed that they probably didn't even realize they were doing, but things like
the gear not fitting, they're not being away for us to go to the
bathroom in the aircraft, like stuff like that that you just don't think about
from an outside perspective, but that gets really frustrating when it's day and day
out you're constantly having to solve these problems. So then there was the period
where I wished I was a guy fighter biot, you know, I like,
it was a frustration to me. And then further on in my career,
as I got closer to applying to the Thunderbirds, I was starting to
be in these experiences where I saw how impactful it could be for other women
or for girls to see me doing what I was doing, And by the
time I got to the Thunderbirds, I really viewed as viewed it as an
asset because the team's mission is to recruit, retain an inspire and there is
no doubt that I could do that in a different way to half the population
than my peers could. And it was just so powerful the interactions I got
to have, especially with young women and girls who are at like a very
transformative age and they're constantly being inundated with perfect action on social media and comparison,
and it's just a tough time and especially the last few years for that
age group. And to see the positive impact I could leave on them through
one simple conversation that only took a few minutes of my time was just so
rewarding. And that's what kind of led me to the children's book and what
I'm doing now, because I wanted to figure out how I could keep doing
that. You mentioned that there weren't overt negative reactions to you, but it
was subtle things along the way. Did that change at all as a Sue
became one of the top members of the class. It was one thing to
let you in the room. It's another thing when you're doing better than they
are, only from one person that I heard blatantly. I'm sure stuff went
on behind my back that I don't know about, but generally my experience in
pilot training was we were a tight knit class, and I viewed most of
them as my friends. And honestly, the interaction I had where it was
getting down to the end of pilot training and it was between seven of us
that were eligible for fighter aircraft at that point, and I was one of
them, and we knew, based on previous classes and how many had been
available for them, that it was likely we would only have one to maybe
three, so not all of us were going to get them. Everyone else
would go fly things like Casey went thirty five's air fuelers C seventeens cargo aircraft.
And there was one guy that was clearly first in our class, and
we knew he had that spot solidified, but it was between me and one
other person between second and third, and second and third we knew could make
all the difference, and so we had one more check ride to go out
of I think we had four check rides throughout the year program. And he
said something to me like, I don't even know why I'm putting in all
this effort because they're going to pick you for this just to check the diversity
box. And it was I was just like so taken aback that a someone
would just say that to my face and be that he actually believed that,
and I was kind of just shocked. And I didn't I don't remember what
I said back, but not much. I didn't stick up for myself.
I was just like, okay. But then I went and did my last
check ride and I worked so hard to be as ready as possible for that
and I just crushed it. I was like my best check ride of the
whole program, and he did okay, but I did substantially better. And
so that one little an interaction sticks in my mind is like one of the
most I guess bold statements that was ever said to me by one of my
peers. There's surely stuff I didn't hear that went on, but to come
to someone's face and just open with that is pretty aggressive. But it also
was a big motivator for me. And after that check right, I knew
I had secured the second spot and we ended up only getting two fighter aircraft
And what were you flying at that point. So we're in T thirty eights
at that point, so the jet trainer aircraft, and then once you were
done with flight training, what were you flying? So you fill out a
dreams sheet at the end of pilot training that lists all the aircraft that are
available in your preferences, and then that's taken into account to some extent,
but then it's really what they are force needs and what's available. And so
I went back and forth for a few weeks trying to decide if I was
going to put the F sixteen or the A ten as my first choice.
For various reasons, I put the F sixteen, and we ended up getting
one F fifteen e Strike Eagle, which was the first guy in the classes
first choice. And then we ended up getting one F sixteen, which was
my first choice, and so I went on to fly F sixteens at that
point and that's what I flew the rest of my career. F sixteens and
A tens are quite a bit different. That's interesting, those are your top
two. So talk about that a little bit and why you ultimately went with
the F sixteen. Would you love about it? Yeah? So, I
think the thing that drew me to the A ten was the mission, the
close air support mission, and that airframe is just so good at that,
and that's all they really do. So I was really drawn to the idea
that you could be the person that changes the tide of an engagement on the
ground in the favor of our guys, and to like, you're sometimes the
thing that determines if they win or lose, or if they go home that
day. So I think there's a lot of pressure but a lot of privilege
that comes with being able to occupy that role. And I really liked the
idea of being able to help at that level. But I realized I talked
to several people for advice who were currently flying fighters, and they were like,
hey, the F sixteen is multi role, so you'll still get to
do close air support, You'll also get to fight air to air. You
also get to fly two times the skieta sound pull nine gs, fly upside
down, all this stuff. And I thought back to seeing those two F
fifteens takeoff, and like, what really drew me to that It was watching
that after burner takeoff and just like the power, the maneuverability, and the
F sixteen has all of that and so that was what really solidified it as
my first choice. So you go from kind of classmates and rivals and pilot
training to once you're deployed, your teammates now and I know that you served
in Europe and Asia and the Middle East. Talk about those deployments. Where
were you and what kind of assignments did you have. Yeah, so my
first assignment, where I was stationed for three years was Massawa, Japan.
So I went overseas right away and I was living there and while there,
we didn't deploy, but we did several what we call tdise so you know,
short trips that aren't into combat zones. But I got to fly all
over the place, trying to think Malaysia. I went to Thailand, all
over the country of Japan itself, Guam, Alaska. It's just a lot
of really cool locations and got to see a lot of the world, a
lot of part of the world that I'd never been to. And then I
went to Forth with Texas after that. While there, I got to deploy
to Afghanistan, so did the combat mission for several months there, got to
do close air support. Turns out that was our primary mission the whole time.
We were there, and then I was back for less than a year,
and I went to Poland for an entire summer, and that wasn't a
combat zone obviously, but I was there to instruct their pilots in their aircraft.
So they also have F sixteens. A lot of their young pilots are
Western trained. They come over here, go through a year of training,
and then go back. So there was already a lot of understanding of how
we operate on our end, and they're one of our allies. So I
got to go there, fly their aircraft, brief their pilots, instruct their
pilots, debrief them, and then live in the local economy and that was
a really cool opportunity. Let me follow up on Afghanistan a little bit.
You talk about close air support, Take us through what that's like in an
active war fighting situation, any particular missions or moments that stand out, definitely.
So it can vary greatly day to day. A lot of the time
has just spent waiting, waiting for something to happen, and so you can
have very boring four to six hour flights where you're just up there, you're
ready to go at a moment's notice. If something kicks off, but a
lot of times nothing would, and so it's extended periods of boredom intermixed with
extreme moments of excitement or stress. And so there was one specifically where I'd
been there for a few months at that point, and I had already dropped
several bombs on different targets, but we got called in for a danger close
situation, which is where the friendlies are close enough where if you drop specific
weapons, they're actually at risk of getting hit by shrapnel. So it's a
high stakes environment. You're usually not dropping that close unless they really need you
to. And it was actually for our allies, the Afghan National Army,
and I was with my wingman, who was a brand new lieutenant. He
was first assignment, had just gotten into country, hadn't employed any weapons yet.
It was also his birthday, which randomly sticks in my mind that day
because we got called and I was like, Okay, you know, when
you're a fighter pilot, you're anxious to do the mission, and so when
you get called to with a tasker to do something, most of us want
to be the one that's actually doing it. And I was like, look,
well set up our roles so that you'll be the one that employs this
weapon. I will guide it in with the laser off of my aircraft through
my targeting pod. So we you know, we're watching the situation. We're
ready to go, We've talked through our roles. We're just waiting for clearance
from higher headquarters. Because this was in twenty sixteen, so at that point
in Afghanistan, we were pretty control. We couldn't drop on any structures because
they didn't want any civilian casualties, so it was very very controlled. Approval
had to come from up the chain of commander, down the chain command to
us. So we're waiting, waiting and my wingman needs to go get gas
from the tanker. So the time comes where he can't hang around anymore.
He needs to go, so he goes to get fuel and as soon as
he leaves to go find the tanker airborne, I get a call from our
control or that's like, hey, we got approval. And it was literally
like not like oh you know, you're gonna be in in two minutes,
it was like call in with direction and I was like, oh boy,
okay, my wingman's gone. I have the weapons on my aircraft as well.
But this was a laser rocket, and you can lay them in from
your own aircraft, but it's very difficult because the maneuver has you diving pretty
substantially towards the ground for the delivery. Also, I forgot to mention this
is in the middle of the night, so it's pitch black out there and
we're on nvch's and so diving at the ground in the middle of the night,
well, not only launching the weapon off your aircraft, but then being
heads down staring at a targeting pod, it's just very dangerous. People have
impacted the ground doing that, like it's not the ideal way to do it.
And so I was like, all right, this is about to get
sporty. And then out of nowhere, another voice comes on the radio and
it was an Army UAV that was like thousands of feet above me that had
been monitoring the entire situation, and they're like, we're ready to lay laser
weapon in, like they were there just waiting, ready to go, and
so I think within thirty seconds I rolled in, shot the rocket, they
lased it in, it shocked the target. It was a mission success,
but I think it was it was stressful for me because I hadn't done that
type of delivery yet in combat, which is much different than flying straight and
pushing the button and lighting the bomb come off the aircraft and then already being
in a pretty stable environment to make sure it goes where it needs to go.
The diving attacks are just a lot more hands on, They're a lot
more stressful. Also the fact that it was at night and my wingman was
gone at the tanker. When I had talked to guys in my squadron who
had deployed a bunch, they were like, the first time you have to
do this new delivery, it's going to be at night, there's gonna be
weather, your wingman's going to be at the tanker. And you're as like
sure, sure or sure no, But that is exactly what happened. So
it was a successful But I think it was a cool example of how we
worked jointly with various branches, and like how everyone was just on the same
page, and how there was so much trust between the different assets. Even
if you never knew who that voice belonged to, you never talked to them
beforehand, and you never talked to them again, we were able to work
together to achieve the result and at that point, I'm guessing the folks on
the ground didn't care. Where there's a male or female pilot up there who
was on target with the enemy, and as long as everybody else in your
squadron knew you could do the job, I would hope that was their reaction
as well. Was that your experience, Yeah, it was never even brought
up. And honestly, the guys that we were supporting were Afghan National Army
guys, so I would be very curious what their reaction would be, just
the cultural differences to having a female pilot's voice come on the radio, because
I know a lot of the Americans I've talked to, They're like, we
always were entertained, or like we enjoyed it. We're like, oh cool,
it's a chick up their pad ass. They were like just generally supportive.
I think anytime any pilot checked in on the radio, they were just
happy to have close air support, regardless of what the voice sounded like.
But I would be curious what the reaction was on the Afghan side, with
just you know, the culture being so different around gender. Do you take
fire from the enemy on that mission or any other? I mean, the
Taliban didn't have a large enough weapons generally to really affect us. For sure,
slower lower counterparts helicopters, apaches see one thirties, those guys were more
at risk than we were. We would get shot out with small arms all
the time, Like you could see all the rounds and the tracers when you're
under night vision goggles. But we weren't at much risk because we were generally
many thousand feet above the range that they could reach. And if we were
low doing something like a show of force, we were coming in at five
hundred knots and they just can't lead you with AK forty seven to hit you
with at that speed. But I think the biggest concern there would be either
getting into a situation where you were getting low on fuel and like the airfield
closes for rockets hitting in the runway because it was at Bogroom and it was
getting shelled basically every day, or a sandstorm rolls in or some other crazy
weather so you're getting into a square corner with fuel, or it would be
some sort of mechanical malfunction like you definitely think about when you're up there.
A single seat aircraft with an injection seat looking at all the rounds that are
going back and forth below you, and just knowing how the Taliban treats anyone
that they capture. This is a little bit of extra stress there, thinking
about what you would do if you had something we had to punch out of
the aircraft. When we come back, will shift from the battlefields of Afghanistan
to the elite Air Force Thunderbirds. Our guest is US Air Force Major Michelle
Mace Curran, and her new children's book is Upside Down Dreams. I'm Greg
Corumbas, and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg
Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is US Air Force Major Michelle Curran,
Callsign Mace. She served thirteen years on active duty in combat and as part
of the Air Force Thunderbirds. And that's where we pick up the story as
Mace explains the unlikely way she encountered the amazing opportunity to fly with the Thunderbirds.
Yeah, so I was towards the end of my second full assignment.
So I've been flying the F sixteen about seven years at that point, and
I already had a follow on to go to New Mexico to become an instructor
at the F sixteen Schoolhouse. Kind of knew what I was doing, and
for whatever reason, I saw an email from the Air Force Personnel Center,
which sends out all these various emails with job opportunities and unique assignments and stuff
that pop up, and I generally would not read them. I just kind
of deleted them, which sorry AFPC. But for whatever reason, I opened
this one and I saw that it was for the Thunderbirds, and not only
was it a hiring announcement, but it was like the last one. It's
like, hey, we've already sent this out probably like two or three times
at this point, deadlines next week. This is your last chance to your
application. And this is the first time I looked at it, and I
scrolled down just out of curiosity to see what the requirements were, and I
was like, I actually meet all of these and this mission sounds really rewarding.
Exciting flying, but also a rewarding mission because I had had an opportunity
while I was in Japan a few times to take a spare aircraft to some
air shows in Asia, and one of those was in Malaysia, and Malaysia
I don't know if this is still true. At the time, they didn't
have any female fighter pilots and so I wasn't even flying the demonstration. I
just was bringing the extra aircraft with but I was still in a flight suit.
They still saw me as one of the F sixteen pilots. And then
I went up and walked along the crowd line and the women there were just
blown away that I was doing that for a living, and I could they
just had so many questions, they wanted to take photos, they were so
excited, and I could just see that it was really positively influential to them,
and I was like, this is a really cool role to be in,
to be able to just plant little seeds of inspiration for people, and
so that kind of planted the seed for me, my own seed of inspiration
that when I saw that email, I was like, I think it's important
that people across America that are going to these shows see representation on the team.
And also the flying just looks fun and it sounds like a really fun
assignment. So I was like, I want to do this, and the
application, of course, is due in five days. I go to my
boss and I'm like, so I realized I literally never mentioned this before and
this is due next Tuesday, But what do you think about this? And
that could have been the moment where it went either way. He could have
easily been like, we should have planned for this, like you're already kind
of committed to go to this next assignment. Also, this is very short
timeline to get your application in, like it's probably just not in the cards.
You should apply next year. But I had a really amazing commander who
had really been a mentor for me that whole assignment, and he was like,
I think you'd be great for this job. What do we need to
do to make this happen? And it was just such a confidence booster because
it is intimidating applying to the Thunderbirds. It's very competitive. The level of
flying that we do on the team is just not like what you do in
a Gray F sixteen. It's hard at first. Everyone struggles with it initially,
so he scrambled, got the application together, send it in. I
got called for interviews, became a finalist, went back for more interviews,
and ended up getting hired for that next season. Do you have to audition
or I don't know what the word for it is in the military, but
do you have to perform in the air as well to get hired? When
I got hired, that was not a requirement. They had removed the like
flying tryout from the team many many years before. But while I was on
the team, we did a lot of we readed the demo and then we
also kind of looked at the hiring process and how we could make it better.
And our boss at the time, who I had for all three years,
was under the mentality that who you hired to the team is like the
ultimate thing that determines the successor failure. And I tend to agree because I
saw a good and not great candidates come in and it could make a huge,
huge difference even with the level of training that they all went through.
And so he decided to bring flying tryouts back. And so the last two
years that I was on the team, when we hired people, they actually
did come out to Nellis to Las Vegas and get in one of the two
seat d Model F sixteens with one of the current pilots in the backseat and
them in the front and go out and fly some of the profile. They're
doing it at much higher altitudes than we do in a show and much further
apart from the other aircraft. But it's just such different flying. It really
gave us a chance to evaluate how much they prepared for it, because we
would give them a lot of stuff to look at beforehand, and you could
tell who spent a lot of time getting ready and who didn't. And it
also showed us how they handled pressure, and you know, when they started
to make mistakes, which all of them did because you're not going to nail
it right out the gate, how they continued to push forward throughout the flight,
or if they didn't and they let it start to really affect their performance
and kind of snowball. And so it was just a really great way to
gauge a few characteristics about the applicants. So it seems like they were looking
for personnel or character qualities as much as they were flying talent. So what
kind of things did they ask you to see if you had the right demeanor
the right character to be part of the team. Yeah, So I think
I've talked about this quite a bit on social media and stuff since I've left
that people are kind of surprised that it's not always the best pilots that end
up getting hired as far as just hands on stick rudder ability, because we
can teach you to fly the type of flying that we do on the team,
but you can't really teach the other thunder other part of the Thunderbird mission
where you have to be a public figure, where you have to be an
ambassador for the Air Force. You're constantly interaction, interacting with kids with adults,
You're representing the Air Force in a positive light. And the schedule that
you run during air show season is demanding. It's a grind. You're on
the road two hundred and forty days a year, You're in a different city
every single weekend. You rarely see your family, you rarely come home.
If you do, it's for like one to two days a week, time
to do laundry and then go again. And so some of what they're evaluating
is your willingness to go through that, like do you really realize what you're
getting yourself into. Some of it is how you'll be to be around two
hundred and forty days a year, because we're with those people more than we're
with our families, and you want to make sure that people's personalities at least
mention enough where it's not going to affect the trust, the teamwork, the
dynamic of the team in a negative way. And then you want to make
sure they're there for the right reasons. And the Thunderbirds can be like this
shiny penny that some people will seek out just for I guess, personal attention,
and that comes through pretty clearly versus the people that want to inspire other
people and really are inspired themselves by that mission. And so we try to
hire people that are there for the right reasons, because the selfish reasons definitely
start to show up pretty quickly once you're on the team, and it can
be a huge frustration to those around you. How'd you find out you made
the team and what was your reaction? So I was still in Texas and
I was actually the supervisor of flying that day, and one of the first
things that we did in the morning was take out a truck with a little
light on the top and drive it up and down the runway when no one
was obviously landing or taking off, just to check the runway to make sure
there was no debris on it FOD, which is stuff that can get pulled
up into the engine damaged the jets just to like get eyes on make sure
everything was good. So I just done that, done my laps down the
runway, and I was just pulling off the edge of the ramp and on
my cell phone ring and it was the executive officer from the current Thunderbirds,
and I was like, Oh, this is the news I've been waiting on
for like months at that point. So I pulled the truck over and answered,
and it was on speaker, and as soon as I said hello,
it was just twelve people yelling congratulations, all at the same time. So
I knew right away I had made the team. But then the big question
was which position did I get hired for, because there were reopen they're very
different. One is the wingman who's like basically always flying off the underbird one's
wing as part of the Diamond. There was a solo which would be number
six that does like the head on passes, the single jet maneuvers, like
the max turn, all the max climbs, all of that kind of stuff.
And then there was number eight, who gets to fly then scent of
flyers, like when we would fly athletes, media celebrities in the back seat.
He gets to do that, and then he also flies the spare jet
ahead of time to get ready for the rest of the team's arrival. So
they are very different positions, and they did ask our preferences, but much
like your dreamsheet and pilot training, you only have so much say in which
position you get hired into. They also look at personalities and how people are
going to move around the team. They're two years there and they kind of
pick based on that, and your preference plays a very small role. But
I had told them I wanted to be a solo pilot. That was my
first choice, and that's what I ended up getting hired for. So it
was like initial celebration. Then I was like, oh, wait, what
position am I getting? And then it was another celebration when I found out
it was my first choice. You mentioned a little bit earlier that it's kind
of a bumpy transition because the flying is so different from being a combat pilot
versus a thunderbird pilot. So talk about what you had to adjust to and
how long it takes to get in sync with this crew. Given the complicated
maneuvers you're running, it's a battle. It was way harder than I had
thought. I think a lot of us in the gray squadrons poke fun at
the thunderbirds. It's like a it's like a When you talk to one person
face to face, they're like, that's super cool flying, Like, what's
it like? But when you get everyone in a group, they're like,
oh, loops to music, thunder chickens whatever. It's just like the culture,
and so I think people underestimate how difficult it actually is. Like every
maneuver, we're targeting altitudes way lower than we would ever fly in any other
squadron, way closer together. You're running the jet at its extreme operating limits
on a regular asis, and stuff that looks as simple as just flying inverted
and holding level flight, you just never do that. There's like no situation
in a gray of sixteen where you want to roll upside down and then push
on the stick and hang in your harness. It's very uncomfortable. All the
blood rushes to your head, anything loose in the airplane falls into the canopy.
Like, there's no tactical reason to ever do that. And so even
just doing that people myself included, first time you start you roll upside down,
you overcompensate with the push and so you end up climbing dramatically and pulling
all these negative g's, which sends all the blood to your head is very
uncomfortable. Flying formation straight and level you get pretty good at pretty quickly.
But now we're like, okay, now we're going to do a loop and
we're going to do a roll. And then as a solo, you go
from flying off the source Thunderbird one, and now you put another airplane in
between there, and now you're at the end of the whip. So the
wing when you're flying off of his making all these adjustments to stay in formation
off of number one, and then you're making adjustments to their adjustments, and
so you're kind of at the whim of how they fly, how smooth they
fly, how quickly they make their changes, and that could make your job
very challenging. So I started flying with the team in first week of November,
I think, and in February we did the flyover for the Super Bowl.
That was my first event no pressure, yeah, which is just a
straight level flyover, but there's just a little bit of pressure to have it
beyond time with the national anthem, So that's fairly stressful. And then we
did a couple more high profile flyovers the Daytona five hundred, the Captain Marvel
Red Carpet Premiere, both of those, and then we got into our first
air show in March, and I mean, I just remember being very nervous,
very stressed out, making tons of little deviations, mistakes where the maneuvers
weren't up to the standard that I wanted. And that is totally normal.
Like everyone that's news starts off show season proficient enough that the crowd is still
like, Wow, that was awesome. But when we watch our tapes in
debrief, we're just like, oh, we have a long way to go.
And I would say, you don't get to that point where you're like,
wow, that was a really good show until probably like August or September.
Wow. So a lot of fine tuning as the show goes on.
Do you generally perform the same show or there are a couple of different versions
or is it different for each audience? So it's generally the same, except
for there's lower shows if weather's a factor. So on a clear day,
if you got to go to an air show this year and there's no clouds,
the team's going to fly a high show, which is what we house
default too. It's the most impressive over the top maneuvers. They really aggressive
climbs, all of that. That's what people expect to see when they come
to the show. But sometimes there's clouds that are in the way and we
can't go into the weather information. It's very disorienting and you also need to
be able to see each other, so we will push it down to a
low show. And then our third contingency is a flat show, which only
needs about two thousand feet of airspace between the ground and the clouds. And
now a lot of the maneuvers that would normally be going upside down, doing
loops whatever, are just like flat passes. You still get plenty of afterburner,
plenty of loud jet noise, so people still find it very impressive.
But I think the team in general would just love to fly at high show
every single day. But sometimes contingencies is where you end up living. When
we come back, Major Curran shares much more about her time in the Air
Force Thunderbirds, and she talks about her brand new children's book, Upside Down
Dreams and how she hopes it inspires kids to pursue their dreams. I'm Greg
Corumbas and this is Veterans Chronicles. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas.
Our guest in this edition is US Air Force Major Michelle Curran. After
thirteen years on active duty, serving in both combat and in the Elite Air
Force Thunderbirds, she now serves in the Air Force Reserves. Curran has also
so the author of the new children's book Upside Down Dreams, and we'll talk
about that shortly, but first major Current tells us how she became the lead
solo pilot for the Thunderbirds. So as a solo, your AO is hired
as the posing solo number six, and then you kind of graduate to become
the lead solo. So the lead solo is a second year person because you're
making a lot of the calls for timing. You're the stable platform for the
other jet to set the formations off of. For like the head on passes,
you're orchestrating those. And then for anything where one jet is inverted and
the other one's upright, you're a is the upside down jet, which is
just a little bit more challenging and takes some more practice. So I knew
I would eventually become the lead solo even during my first year, while I
was the posing solo number six, since that's how it normally happens. But
then I ended up getting a bonus here because of the pandemic and spent two
years as the lead solo before I left the team after three years total.
Speaking of the pandemic, there was a unique incident that I had the chance
to watch near Washington, DC, and that's where the Thunderbirds and the Blue
Angels flew together, which I don't know if that was unprecedented, but it
is certainly rare. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah, we're pretty
sure that it was unprecedented. The teams have had what I would call a
friendly rivalry, but more on the rivalry side and less on the friendly side
for quite some time. But while I was on the team, the boss
at the time, one of his things was like, this is dumb.
We're the only two jet teams in America. We should be learning from each
other, like we should be sharing best practices, and you know, when
I have an issue, I should be able to call the Blue Angels boss
and bounce ideas off of him and vice versa. And so he reached out
and kind of created a friendship there and the team started actually training together for
a week each winter, and then that started right before the pandemic. And
then when the pandemic happened, we're like, okay, we've already done some
integration with each other. We'd written in backseat to kind of get like an
insight into their demo, we'd said in a brief debrief. So there was
a lot of like ideas and information being exchanged, and it became pretty clear
very quickly that most air shows were going to cancel for the year, and
we still needed to fly to stay proficient. The money was already allocated to
the squadron's budgets, like we had to keep flying, and so how could
we still be impactful to the American people even though there's no air shows?
And that's where the whole America Strong mission was born. And I'm not sure
at what point the Blue Angels got pulled into it, but I know it
was. It was being talked out like Air Force headquarters and Navy headquarters level,
so it was well above us before it got decided, but we ended
up I think it was in April we went to Pensacola. The whole squadron
picked up and went there. And we flew for a couple of weeks with
them to get our we call them dueling deltas, the two delta formations get
everything syncd up on the air speeds we would fly with. The radio calls
would be who would lead, what much smoke each team had, when it
would be on how big our turns needed to be. Like, there's a
lot that goes into putting two six jet formations close together. And then we
started doing our city flyovers and we ended up doing two in DC. One
was the fourth of July over the White House, but then earlier in the
spring during America Strong, we did a seven and a half hour flight that
launched and recovered out of Pensacola, Florida, with both teams plus a spare
jet a Chase jet for each. So we had fourteen fighter aircraft all together.
I can't even remember how many different air refueling aircraft we had, how
many different tankers. They were stationed in various points along the coast. And
then they're F eighteen, so their refueling system is different than ours, so
we had to have two different types. It was quite the lift to make
that happen, but we flew from Pensacola to Atlanta. We were like Baltimore,
DC, New York City, Philly, Boston, and each of those
major cities. We were dropped down low as low as we could go based
on the obstacles and all the rules and stuff. So it's generally five hundred
two thousand feet above the ground in close formation smoke on showing America that hey,
like, we realize you're quarantine right now. Life sucks and everyone's morale
is low, but we're all in this together, and I think it was
a cool beacon of hope for people and like a really dark time, And
it was actually the most challenging flying I did the entire time I was on
the team, and I think most of us agreed because it was just very
We had to completely invent this from scratch, like no one had done this
before. There was an insane amount of coordination involved with air traffic control and
all the different airports we flew over, and we weren't used to flying close
formation for that long of a time, so you're like neck would start to
cramp up because you're also looking in the same direction. The F sixteen has
a sidestick, so you can only use your right arm and making those really
tiny fine motor adjustments with the weight and the stick on your arm. Everyone
was getting like tendinitis in their elbows. Your arm would go numb. You'd
be like looking at your arm as it's like fully asleep and you're flying three
feet from another aircraft. You're just like, are you still there? Is
my arm still there? So yeah, it was just challenging to maintain that
level of focus for that long and then you're just exhausted after a seven and
a half hour flight operating at that level. So it was worth it.
The feedback was amazing, but it was not easy flying. We're talking with
Michelle Curran, US Air Force veterans, still a reservist, served thirteen years
active duty, served as the lead solo pilot for the prestigious Air Force Thunderbirds.
Her new books Upside Down Dreams, which we'll get to and in just
a second, a couple more questions about the Thunderbirds mace. You've got obviously
tight formations when you're doing your normal show, so a lot of things could
be considered a close call. Any moments in your years where you thought,
oh, this could really be bad. Plenty of times like you would get
so used to like hitting turbulence, the jet you're flying off of, making
a move away from the jet they're flying off of because they made a move,
and you've just got very good at you would have, honestly, like
that initial physiological reaction where you kind of like cringe, but you got very
good at just like a tiny rudder tap to slide out so you wouldn't hit
them. But you're not like ejecting yourself from the formation where it's very obvious
to the audience. So that kind of stuff would happen all the time.
But I mean there were a couple with just bad weather, low weather raining,
like trying to get all the six jets into airfields when we would go
across country. That honestly is more stressful than flying an air show. And
then I hit a bird when I was in Colombia, a vulture. So
that thing had like a five to six foot wingspan. It was very large.
I saw it right before I hit it. It was also recorded on
the GoPro I had running in my aircraft, so we went back and saw
its wingspan right before impact. But I solidly hit that thing, and I
had the initial reaction of did that go down my intake into the only engine
that I have. I'm like over the forest of Columbia. I wrote a
story about it, and someone's like, that's not the jungle. I was
like, well, to me, it looks like a jungle. I'm in,
like Central America. This feels very junglely to me. But I did
not want to eject there obviously, or anywhere else for that matter. So
you have the initial reaction of I definitely hit that bird that was a very
large bird, and then you're staring at your engine instruments, just waiting to
see like your RPM start to fluctuate, or your engine temperature gauge start to
spike or something. Luckily, it didn't, and I was able to land
after just a few minutes and taxi clear. But I guess I had the
higher stress reaction when we actually shut the jet down and I got out.
Before I got out, my crew chief came up the ladder and he's normally
very calm, like very even killed guy, and he was like wide and
he's like, mam, you have two huge holes in the side of your
jet. And I was like, what it's like you have two holes like
bigger than my fist through the side of your jet. And I got down
and looked, and I've seen plenty of bird strikes with smaller birds where it's
like a little you might have like a little dent or like a little smear,
and you're like, okay, well for sure some feathers. You're like,
we hit a bird. This It was legit, like fist size holes
through the outside skin of the metal that goes around the intake that sucks into
the engine. And so we figured out that the bird was like spread eagle,
I guess is the perfect phrase for the story. Right before I hit
it, and I had clipped its left wing with the left side of my
intake, and its wing actually went down the intake because they did, they
put a camera in there, and there were all kinds of feathers inside the
engine, so they had to completely swap that engine for a new one while
we're on the road in a foreign country. And then the body kind of
cart wheeled down the side of the outside of the intake and put these huge
holes through the aircraft. It actually punched out the metal, and I have
the pieces of metal. They're like all mangled and curled up and then is
not thin metal, Like you could take up players and try to uncurl those
pieces and there You're not gonna be able to do it. It's like super
strong. So the fact that what six or seven pound bird can do that
much damage was a good reminder of like how serious it could be. And
I have no doubt that if that whole thing would have gone into the engine,
that I would have been engine out. So I'm glad that it wasn't,
you know, three inches further to the left. But that was still
one that sticks with me because I had never seen a bird strike do that
much damage to a fighter aircraft before, and I really realized how serious it
could have been. Read the first female lead solo pilot, so I was
the second. Combo Weeks was the first one, and she was back in
I think she got hired in two thousand and six. So the first female
pilot for the Thunderbirds ever was in two thousand and five Fie female Kowski,
and then the next year Combo got hired to be a solo, so there
were actually two for a little while, but there haven't. I was only
the fourth one to fly in the demo ever, and the team's been around
seventy years at this point, so there have not been a lot of us.
Well, as we said, at thirteen years active duty, you went
to reserves. In twenty twenty two, you also became a children's book author.
The book is Upside Down Dreams, and tell us how you came up
with the general idea for the book and then the story that goes in the
book. Yeah, so it was quite the journey to get to a physical
book being published. In twenty nineteen, my first year with the Thunderbirds,
we did an event at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and so I
was there in my show suit. We got a tour, we did some
meeting greats, and then we had some time to walk around and I went
into the bookstore at the main museum right in DC, and I was looking
at all the really cool aviation stuff they have there. It's a really cool
place if you haven't been. But I went over to the books and they
had a lot of children's books on aviation and space, but there weren't many,
or if any, that had like a female pilot character, and there
also weren't my that were focused on fighter pilots. And I was like,
I think it would be really cool to write a children's book about a little
girl that wants to be a fighter pilot or is somehow in that world.
And so that was the where the idea started. And I think I actually
told someone on that trip, like, I want to write a book some
day and get it in this museum and this gift shop because I think it's
important and this whole people come here to inspire their kids, you know what,
I mean, to show them all of these inspiring areas in space and
an aviation and all these things that they can go accomplish, and I felt
like it was lacking a little bit in that specific part. So I got
the idea. Turns out, like I said, we were gone a lot.
The show season is crazy, and I was on my first year,
so I was just trying to hang on and learn and become proficient. So
there was a zero chance of me starting it at that point. But then
the pandemic happened, and there was a period before we started the city flyovers
where we were working remotely while everyone was trying to figure out what the heck
was happening and what was going on with the air shows, and the period
that everyone remembers and like Arch of twenty twenty and so I was at home
a lot, and I was getting kind of bored, and I was like,
I'm going to write this children's book. So I started to write the
manuscript, and I was thinking about like how I wanted this story to unfold,
and it actually happened very quickly. I wrote the manuscript over just maybe
two days, and then send it back and forth with a few people to
edit it, pare it down, make it more like children language friendly.
Not that I had like profanity in there, but just things that would go
well with illustrations in the future and that kind of thing. But I really
wanted to be about this little girl that was chasing her dream, not written
from my perspective as a thunderbird pilot. So it's about this girl in the
book. She's eight years old, Lily Padilly is her name, and she
goes to school, I guess here in Las Vegas because every day these jets
fly over her school and she keeps getting in trouble and class because she's caught
not paying attention staring out the window at the aircraft. And she ends up
going home and her mom scolds her because the teacher called, like she's not
paying attention in school. Her grandpa, who she has a really close relationship
with, is over at their house that night, and here's this conversation and
realizes when she says, like, well, it's because I'm watching these airplanes
and I just can't stop looking at him and all she's really excited about it.
He shares with her at that point that he was actually a fighter pilot
way back in the day before she was born, so she never knew that,
and she's just so fascinated by it, and so he shares some parts
about what it was like, and she's like, I'm going to go do
that someday. And he's like, well, you have to pay attention in
school, like you gotta work hard. You're gonna have to do well in
math and science. And she's like, all on board, I'm going to
do this. But as she starts to do that in school and be the
kid that's as raising their hand and answering the questions, she starts to get
a little pushback from her peers about being a no at all, and she
explains why she's doing it, and when she does that, she gets skepticism
around this dream of becoming a fighter pilot. Primarily because she's a little girl,
and so she's just heartbroken, Like she suddenly realizes that every pilot she
knows is male, and she's like, can I actually do this? And
so her grandpa has a solution, and that is to take her to somewhere
where she can actually see someone that looks like her doing her dream. And
so they end up going to an air show on the weekend watch the thunderbirds
fly. So you have all of these amazing illustrations of her grandpa, you
know, explaining how the jets go up, up, up, and they
go this way and that way, and then in the end the pilot's land,
they shut down, the aircraft, take off their helmets, and the
number five pilot her braid swings out from her helmet, and Lily on the
sideline sees that and it's just like in awe. And so they end up
getting to meet the pilot gives her this little American flag from her pocket,
and we actually flew every single air show with these small American flags mounted inside
our jets, and then we would grab them and take them to the autograph
line afterwards. And you kind of keep your eye out for one specific kid
that you could tell it would be really impactful for them to get just this
small little memento from you, And it was so fun to give that away
every single air show. And so Lily ends up getting this little American flag
from the number five pilot and it just empowers her. She's like, I
can do this, and so she leaves the air show completely invested in believing
in herself to actually go achieve her dream. And she goes back to school,
of course, and shows the kids in her class the little American flag
she was given. But it's I think a very relatable journey that actually plays
out for a lot of kids. I cannot tell you how many girls have
come up and asked me about being a woman in that role, or come
up to me with doubt about their ability to do something like that, specifically
because they were female. And I wish it still wasn't a thing, but
it still is very much a thing for a lot of them. And so
the goal with the book is just to inspire those kids and show them that
it is possible, even if they never find themselves at an air show in
the actual audience. There was a way to keep spreading that message, you
know, beyond the in person interactions that I could have while I was on
the team. You mentioned your interaction with the young girls at the air show
and you always pick out one to give the flag too. What do you
look for? Is it a look? Is that how excited they are?
What is the clincher moment where you decide it's going to be that kid.
Yeah, I'm sure it was different for each pilot, but for me personally,
it honestly, it wouldn't be the most excited, most outgoing little kid.
It would be the one that was a little bit more shy, a
little bit more reserved, that was looking at me with like kind of awe
but also like they needed a confidence boost. Like you could see it because
I was that kid. I was not the one that would see like a
role model and run up and be like, oh my gosh, that was
so cool, I'm so excited to me you can I take a picture with
you? Like I wouldn't have never done that as a kid. I would
have been the one that was too scared to do that, that was too
shy. And so for me personally, I saw myself and some of those
more reserved kids when they would just be looking at me kind of a little
bit shy, a little bit, and then I would be like, hey,
I have something for you, and I would give it to them.
Their faces would just light up, and they all of a sudden would open
up. A lot of them would just start talking and talking about how excited
they were and how cool the show was and what they want to do.
And I think it was just really neat to be able to do that for
those specific kids in that environment. And I think it's worth saying. I
think it's probably implied in the story, but it's not just for fighter pilots.
This book gets for anybody who's got a dream of whatever they want to
do that it can be achieved, absolutely, And I you know, I
think when I wrote the book, I imagined it being read by and read
too kids that were like, you know, three to seven years old roughly,
you know, being read by their parents to them, and then new
readers going through it, both boys and girls. The feedback I've gotten has
been so incredible. I've had so many adults by it and be like,
I bought your book. I don't have any kids, but it's just for
myself, and a lot of them have actually sent me these really heartfelt messages
and been like, I actually teared up reading your book because I've felt what
Lily feels in that moment where she suddenly realizes that other people don't believe she
can achieve her dream, and it's like just a very relatable story, I
think to all ages, because we've all been there. Actual question for you,
Michelle, you know you've been a rarity, a female combat pilot,
and in a very rare role as a lead solo pilot for the Thunderbirds.
What do you think those trailblazing roles have meant in general and the bigger picture.
Yeah, I think it cannot really be overstated how powerful it is for
people to see someone that they have can personally connect to doing something that they
want to do. I think it's hard for us to create dreams for ourselves
when no one that we can even remotely relate to is in those roles.
I mean, there's obviously been women that have done that the first, but
those are unique people and that took a lot of courage on their are to
be the first. And I don't think that we all necessarily are in a
position where we're willing to forge a trail at that level. But every time
someone else follows down that path, it becomes a little bit more established and
it's a little bit easier to walk down. And so sometimes there's controversy around
the attention that women and minorities get in kind of these public roles like the
all female Super Bowl flyover, or when I was flying for the Thunderbirds,
people be like, we don't care, like, we don't care about your
gender. We just care that you can do the job. And I was
just sure those people, like, none of us would be in the positions
we were in if we couldn't do the job. That's like, that is
not something that changes depending on your gender. But when you're doing the job,
you have this extra ability to inspire a lot of people to recruit other
pools of talent, which is really important in the military, especially right now.
And why would you not lean into that. And the people that push
back, it's they're not your audience, right. Your audience is the people
that need that little bit inspiration, They need to see you in that role.
So I think it's really important for a general cultural shift and to take
away a lot of barriers that are no longer imposed by institutions like the combat
exclusion Act or anything like that, like those are gone, but I think
there's still a lot of more subtle barriers that are harder to put your finger
on. That society puts in place for people, and then we put in
place for ourselves depending on what we see. Well, Mace, it's an
incredible career and it continues now and the Air Force Reserves. Thank you so
much for your time today, Congratulations on the book, and thank you most
of all for your service to our country. Now, thank you for having
me. You have some really great questions I haven't been asked before. Oh
fantastic. Always glad to hear that. Michelle Curran is a US Air Force
veteran, still in the reserves thirteen years active duty, served as a fighter
pilot, serving in Afghanistan, as we mentioned, ultimately becoming an Air Force
Thunderbird pilot and ultimately a lead solo pilot. She's also the author of the
brand new children's book Upside Down Dreams. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans
Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans
Chronicles, a presentation of the American Veterans Center. For more information, please
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