Original subtitles

I have gone through that flight 100 times in my head.

INSTRUCTOR Damn it

SPENSER Oh ****

I really messed that up.

We're all talking about what happened on that flight.

Yeah.

Like feeling the G’s, like my brain slowed down.

INSTRUCTOR Yeah, we should probably go home

SPENSER Damn it

Just heard that disappointed dad voice in the back seat,

and it just, and it broke my heart.

SPENSER Man, I'm bummed

I think there is definitely a shock factor.

Yeah, hey, by the way, you don't know anything yet.

SPENSER I apologize, sir

The next phase is gonna be the most difficult one.

We're treated differently.

There's intermediate and advanced,

and we're in advanced now.

152 flight clear for take-off one right

due for departure.

INSTRUCTOR Do we have to turn these cameras on at all?

INSTRUCTOR Negative, you should see the

red light blinking

INSTRUCTOR No red light here

INSTRUCTOR Well, I guess it's just going to be me today

INSTRUCTOR There we go, now I got it

INSTRUCTOR Get my TV time

INSTRUCTOR Looking pretty good.

The students are at the final stage

of advanced training.

INSTRUCTOR Pull back, pull back

For nearly six months,

instructors have challenged them with increasingly

complex training missions.

INSTRUCTOR Take the shot if you have it

Teaching them not only how to fly,

but also how to fight.

INSTRUCTOR Fox 2

ANDREW No way

Now, two of the toughest stages stand

between them and graduation.

They'll face the dangers of low-level flights for

the first time and be asked to fight head-to-head

against their instructors.

At these later stages of training,

the students' performance matters more than ever,

as their scores will impact where they're posted to next.

Every single one of our events is graded.

So at the end of the syllabus,

every student is gonna have a final score...

...and we're gonna look at those scores when we

determine where the students are gonna go.

So the better you do, the more likely it is that

you're going to get what you want.

For Lieutenant Junior Grade Spenser Neel,

the stakes are particularly high.

It hasn't been smooth sailing for Spenser so far.

He's had his hiccups here and there along the way.

INSTRUCTOR You yanked too hard

SPENSER Damn it

Early on, as he was learning to get through the formation stage,

that’s where Spenser really started to struggle a lot.

Damn dude are you kidding me?

Spenser's early struggles in training mean he

will need high scores on his final exercises to

get his first choice.

His dream is to fly the F18.

But where he ends up being based is just as important,

not only for Spenser,

but also for his wife, Brianna.

So when’s you’re next flight?

Monday.

Do you think you’re ready?

Yea dude, what kinda question is that?

We put Virginia Beach, F18s, as number one.

Because I know that over the next several years I,

there's a high probability I am gone a lot.

What cheese do you want B?

- The provolone. - Okay.

We don't know if we want to have kids,

but then if she is closer to family,

it’d be better taken care of that way.

That's all that matters.

Moose, do you want some pizza?

So in a few weeks we'll know where we're going next.

Our top choice is Virginia Beach,

that would be excellent.

Our families will be able to come visit us more easily.

Pepperoni.

But there also is the, you know we might not get that.

I will do whatever is needed of me.

For the first of Spenser's final stages,

the entire unit has relocated to California

for a series of low altitude exercises,

only possible in the remote desert.

You know the first two days we got here was

sort of like a vacation because we weren't on a

flight schedule yet.

So we were just hanging out and just having fun and

then yesterday, the schedule comes out.

It's like, all right, game on.

Okay.

Obviously, big thing all day today is first time

flying low to the ground.

Yes, sir.

When working with troops on the ground,

in a troops in contact situation...

...you might be called in to do a show of force.

So, a show of force is where you drop down low, go fast,

make some noise, scare the bad guys.

Did that quite a few times in Afghanistan.

Taking an F-18 down to 200 feet and full afterburn

at 500 knots.

Right over some bad guys is a interesting experience.

That is the real-world application of low-level or

ONAV training.

In the first of the two low-level

training exercises,

students will need to navigate a narrow route

through the canyon walls of the El Centro Desert.

They'll be graded on their ability to fly low level

with precise accuracy,

but without dropping below the 500-foot altitude limit.

It will also be a test of nerves as they perform one of

the most dangerous maneuvers they've faced,

inverting the jet to fly upside down over a

jagged ridge line.

Fear is intense. Very intense.

We’re gonna fly 500 feet at 400 knots,

and we're gonna go through mountain canyons

that I've never been to.

Never done it.

And we’re gonna roll inverted and go on the

backside of mountains.

We're going to roll off the front side of mountains.

You should have fear.

I think having a healthy amount of fear is,

is kind of necessary.

Things don't just stop happening in a jet, you know,

nobody's coming to save you.

You can't put your car in park,

you know you're in an aircraft that's moving through the air,

so you have to be a Johnny on the spot.

The thing I'm really nervous about is how the

jet feels and things like that.

But these are opportunities that not a lot of people get

and its, well I'm grateful to be here.

Following Spenser into the canyon

will be his friend, Captain Steph Harris.

Spenser and I met in Key West.

He's a great friend.

We bonded very, very quickly.

I think we uh think similarly in some ways,

and we're like working on ourselves similarly to be

better versions of ourselves.

Steph's dream is to fly F-18s at Miramar

in San Diego,

the base made famous by the Top Gun film.

She’s been a standout student so far,

scoring top of her class in the early events.

But like all the students she has never flown this low

through terrain.

TOWER El Centro tower, cleared for takeoff

Guiding Spenser through his first run is

Lieutenant Commander Ballato.

Call sign ‘Champ’.

There's gonna be a valley appearing on our left

It all kinda looks the same to me,

but I'm sure I'll figure it out

One of the leading causes of flight fatalities are

pilots flying into terrain.

So for their first low-level run,

students need to pay close attention to their altitude

warning systems to ensure they don’t break the

500 foot limit.

SPENSER Just gotta calibrate my eyes

‘CHAMP’ You’re fine just ‘cause I know this is

your first time out here seeing this

He does have really dangerous flights.

I'm fairly confident that he's gonna come home every day,

but there's always the chance that he doesn't.

I try not to think of the worst day to day because I think,

that would, it would just, you know, drag me down.

‘CHAMP’ Gotta start working it down to 500 feet

SPENSER Yes Sir

SPENSER To the left here?

‘CHAMP’ Yep, go left

SPENSER Yes, sir

‘CHAMP’ Let’s try to do some terrain following here

like you’re trying to evade a radar

SPENSER Yes, sir

‘CHAMP’ Easy with the pull

‘CHAMP’ Right, roll out

‘CHAMP’ Roll out

‘CHAMP’ So, I think we started that turn a

little bit too late?

SPENSER Yes, sir

‘CHAMP’ I want you to over bank to the right

‘CHAMP’ and over this ridge right here

SPENSER Yes, sir

‘CHAMP’ Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull

‘CHAMP’ Pull down. Yep

'CHAMP' Roll out

'CHAMP' You watch that rising terrain

'CHAMP' We're staying level but the terrain's rising

‘CHAMP’ Get the nose up, get the nose up!

Every once in a while like he’s a little later

landing than I think and I’ll just send him a text

and when it,

when it pops up blue on the iPhone I know like

he’s not dead.

That was pretty wild.

I felt pretty rusty.

Alright grab a seat.

Oh. Sweet.

Alright welcome back, any questions from the brief?

Just felt like I was really, in that whole flight felt like

I was just knocking rust off.

Yeah.

Like, even comms, I don't know if you noticed,

like I would just pause.

Like, what do I gotta say right now?

During the first low level flights instructors

are primarily concerned with safety.

For Instructor Ballato his main issue was how quickly

Spenser was reacting to low altitude warnings from

the Radar Altimeter or RadAlt.

Initially, first couple of times,

just not quite aggressive enough to get the nose up when

you get the RadAlt going off.

So just remember like that RadAlt if you

hear that tone going off,

like you always want to be like instinctively reacting.

And you never uh want to get complacent with listening

to the RadAlt go off, because at the end of the day,

like that could save your life uh if you get distracted

or something like that.

So just remember, like hey,

as soon as you hear RadAlt just a positive G

to the point where we know that you're uh, you’re correcting.

Yes sir.

This is your first time doing this,

so I don't expect you to be good at it.

That's the whole reason why we practice this over

and over again.

- Yep. - Okay.

Thank you.

Good Lord.

This is the most demanding and the most challenging

thing I've ever done.

You are never going to be good enough,

and that's a good thing because we always want you

to be better and always striving to be better.

If he does come home on a bad day,

you just have to remind him that everything's fine,

you're in training.

You get better by making mistakes.

If Spenser makes it to the fleet,

he could be deployed overseas for as long as nine months

at a time.

So where he and Brianna call home, matters.

It does make us wonder,

like do we want to have kids with a career where I might not

be there very much?

So it's tough.

Uh it's a lot of conversations and then a lot of silence

sometimes because we don't have to talk about it we know

what we're thinking.

Having family close would be great.

I'll do everything I can to get us there.

Yeah. Yeah.

Next into the canyon is Captain Steph Harris

to get her first taste of flying low.

STEPH Mask on, visor down and I'm ready in the front

Stephanie, definitely one of the more interesting

students that we've had come through here,

just by way of a very different background.

Do you want me to aim for like, the little gap there?

INSTRUCTOR Yep

STEPH Roger

Having, at one point, gone to India to become

a yoga instructor.

And that's not somebody that you typically see joining

the Marine Corps and wanting to become a fighter pilot.

Feel that down through the legs, through the feet,

pressing the palms into the mat,

really firmly pressing them.

Before I joined the Marine Corps,

I was living in my hometown and working on a farm.

If it hurts, you can always come onto your knees.

And working at an Italian restaurant,

like serving tables and what I'm doing now,

sometimes it feels like light years away.

I love to be outside, I really love nature.

Sensation of the ocean or the mountains or the soil.

There's just, yeah, there's a frequency to them.

That's hippie.

Wow...

...Sorry.

INSTRUCTOR Start working your way to 500 feet

STEPH Roger

INSTRUCTOR See this canyon coming up on the left?

INSTRUCTOR Go ahead and get your nose in there

STEPH Roger

INSTRUCTOR A little harder pull

STEPH This is awesome

INSTRUCTOR It is pretty cool, isn’t it?

STEPH Yeah, it's trippy

INSTRUCTOR There you go

INSTRUCTOR Perfect

This unspeakable sensation of flight.

There's plenty of poems that talk about how special

and sacred of an experience it is.

INSTRUCTOR So, this is gonna be your ridgeline crossing here

STEPH OK

Some people talk about, "touch the hand of God."

It's like nothing else.

INSTRUCTOR Let's get a little G on the jet

STEPH Roger

INSTRUCTOR Perfect. Right there

STEPH That was so cool

400 knots, ground speed at 500 feet.

It's just you can't, you have to do it.

Stephanie, she brings a passion and a dedication

to being the best fighter pilot that she can be.

She has done well through the syllabus.

Not only amongst her class, but across the wing.

STEPH That was it?

INSTRUCTOR Yep

STEPH Alright, I’m going to climb off the route

You definitely compare yourself to the people that

you surround yourself with.

In this later stages like this,

we really are super competitive with one another.

The anticipation was harder than actually doing it,

but it was good.

Thank you.

How well did you do?

What do your grades look like from that instructor?

What do my grades look like?

So that doesn't ever go away at any stage.

You know, we just got our, kind of like,

our scores back today.

And some guys here did really well, so.

Did better than me, I'll tell you that much.

And there’s so many different types of people and

so many different backgrounds.

You can imagine,

like young ego perfectionist never fails,

like can't show anybody that I you know have a flaw,

when like we're all flawed and we're all trying to learn.

It's so competitive.

I feel confident in my skills,

but I also know that there's guys that are better than me.

Anytime you screw up,

everyone's gonna know about it and it might be

an ego hit that someone did better than me,

but it just pushes you to get better.

Extra 1-5, set your tower hold short, runway 2-6.

The class has completed the first stage of

low level training and been cleared to progress to

the much harder Stage 2.

Take off runway 2-6 and get ready to rock and roll

from there.

Student Marcus Figueroa performed

well in the first low level flight,

but now the stakes are higher.

He’ll need to combine the dangers of flying low

with the challenge of precision bombing.

Very nervous. Very nervous.

Some of the students like,

that went out you know today and did it,

and they said it's unlike anything they've done before.

Marcus's dream is to fly the iconic F-18,

but he won't be guaranteed that choice without

consistently high grades.

In the strike bombing stage, he was marked down for

not flying aggressively enough.

INSTRUCTOR Damn it, my controls

MARCUS Your controls

Although he eventually passed,

he’s determined not to fall short of expectations again.

It's not just about passing.

The worst thing you want to hear is like, oh like,

we’ll pass you, but,

because you just know that you're not amounting to

what you need to.

You repeat it the way I said it.

As a student who has been on the chopping block

before, like, you don't want to hear that.

You know, I think for me, I refuse to go back to that.

For the low-level strike mission,

students will be flying against the clock.

They'll take off together,

then enter the canyon in tactical formation or TAC form.

Because they are separated by less than a mile

they will have to navigate not only the canyon walls,

but also maintain a safe distance from each other.

Once they make it through the canyon,

they will emerge over a mock enemy target,

where they will have seconds to execute a simulated

bomb drop on target,

before their mission clock runs out.

Primary responsibility is collision avoidance.

You can expect a 90 degrees turn to the left,

and then you're following me through Star Wars Canyon.

Have you done this route yet?

Never, sir. I've never seen terrain like this.

It's not, it’s not scary,

just make sure you're pulling.

Yeah.

And just don't hit anything.

Flying with Marcus today will be his friend,

Chuck Kent.

He was in my last squadron in primary.

He’s awesome you know,

he's a marine, marine, you know, got the stash.

He has the bearing and the haircut and certainly

the voice for it.

I Joined the military because I think America is the

greatest thing that's ever happened to the world.

I'm totally bought into that whole idea,

just how special America is in our uniqueness.

And now I just have to get through the training and then

hopefully you know getting to fly F-35s in the fleet.

That's the dream right there.

The students up to this point have done

single plane low levels.

They've done strike, and they've done TAC form.

So now we're going to take all three of those stages and

combine it into one event.

This is a very dynamic thing we're doing.

And there's just inherent risk because we have humans

in the cockpit, and humans will make errors,

and sometimes it costs lives.

It’s one of the first phases where we really

hold them accountable,

and they don’t like it so they have to grow up

and they have to get on with it.

Especially when they're new,

you will see how nervous they get.

There is sweat just pouring.

Take off checks complete.

Hammer 2 up and ready.

TOWER 28013 Cleared for takeoff.

I've got mad respect for anybody that climbs

in that thing and,

and takes off in it, because I don't,

I don’t know if I could do it.

INSTRUCTOR I'm ready, you ready?

MARCUS Yes sir.

INSTRUCTOR Alright tac left

INSTRUCTOR Set 500 feet

Marcus is first into the canyon.

INSTRUCTOR Entering point Alpha

INSTRUCTOR Here we go

MARCUS Hammer, tac left, 310

INSTRUCTOR So, you got to say Hammer 1, 310

MARCUS Hammer 1, 310

Because both pilots are focused

on the terrain,

there's a danger they could be turning into

each other's path.

So it's critical the students communicate

the direction of their heading.

INSTRUCTOR Hammer, tac right, 030

MARCUS 030

Then stick precisely to that heading

to avoid collision.

You can't see the terrain beyond the turn

so it's off-putting.

I'm going 400 knots ground speed,

and if I take the corner and there's a mountain there,

I'm gonna hit it, I won't have the time.

INSTRUCTOR Ah, you're a little bit long.

INSTRUCTOR About 2 miles

INSTRUCTOR So, try and catch up to him

CHUCK Roger that, sir. Coming up

INSTRUCTOR Take the ridgeline that's right next

to the main peak

Right off my nose, sir?

INSTRUCTOR Yep, the one off your nose

INSTRUCTOR Chuck, get your nose up a little bit

CHUCK All right, up and over

INSTRUCTOR Oh, don't overbank that much

INSTRUCTOR You start pulling down into lead

INSTRUCTOR you're going to scare the **** out of them

CHUCK Roger that, sir.

INSTRUCTOR Out of the turn, reference the target

Hammer 1 visual.

Going over the Salton Sea.

It's like, everything's going so fast, and then it just stops.

INSTRUCTOR Put the needle on the nose of the target

MARCUS I got 'em.

INSTRUCTOR Alright, here we go

INSTRUCTOR Hammer, attack.

MARCUS Hammer 1, off safe

Hammer 2. visual

CHUCK Got ‘em in sight

INSTRUCTOR Go

INSTRUCTOR Look at that

INSTRUCTOR It's like magic

CHUCK Hammer 2, off safe

INSTRUCTOR Alright knock it off, knock it off

CHUCK Roger that, sir

After refueling in Palm Springs,

the students have returned to base for their debrief.

It was good. It was fun.

I thought it was a lot better than I thought it'd be,

for sure.

Yeah. So it’s a, I think it's another yes for today.

Marcus's calm,

precise flying has earned him high marks

on the exercise.

But Chuck will have to have to wait a little longer

to find out how he’s done.

Alright thank you.

Cake for these guys.

There's this place called Sherman's Bakery up

in Palm Springs.

The maintainers really like the carrot cake.

But the cake was more than just a gift

for the crew, it was also a test for Chuck.

It was a big,

heavy cake and the feedback they gave me was,

you're a little too hard on the pulls.

Just slow down your pull rate just a little bit more,

and he said,

alright, we're gonna put the cake in your plane and

the maintainers are gonna be really sad if you

ruin their cake.

It’s all about technique.

Their grades reflect how well the cake looks.

I mean, it did the thing.

It looks good.

I was trying to be healthy guys.

You know, it got a little squished here and there,

pulling some G’s, but it looks good.

I'd eat it.

Now, just one stage stands between these

students and their wings, but it's one of the toughest.

XO.

What up? What up?

Hammer flight, welcome.

More than 3 years of flight school will culminate

in the final stage of their Advanced Training

the notoriously difficult Fighter Intercept.

When students will have to go head to head against their

instructors in a dogfight.

The instructors, they have 2000 sometimes 3000 hours,

you know, in these aircrafts.

So you're just doing the best you can.

Come on, Spenser.

Tomorrow's test will be a critical opportunity

for Spenser to improve his class ranking.

Dude, why don't we touch paddles?

Uhh we haven't scored a point.

Oh, yeah, you're right.

That’s why we haven’t touched paddles.

We're kind of entering the most difficult,

most dynamic portion of the flight training

Let's be honest. The training wheels are off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There’s extra pressure for Spenser to

do well in training,

he has a family legacy to uphold.

When you come through the gate and

drive to the left,

there's a desert camo A-7 Corsaire 2 up on a stick.

That jet's beautiful and my dad flew that jet.

It's Deja-vu being here because I got my wings at this

very naval air station.

I threw bombs all over the desert.

Because we had manual sights, but that's okay.

The A7, I got very good at them and I could put

them through your front door.

He was too young to know my military.

He knew of his grandfathers,

who was a bomber pilot in World War II.

So my grandfather was in the Army Air Corps.

He flew a B-25.

That is his bomber that has my grandmother on

there in a very inappropriate pose.

I think my dad is vicariously reliving his days through me,

and I can't blame him because if,

if Brianna and I ever have kids one day,

I guarantee I'm gonna do the same thing.

Spenser’s father Harry served at

NAS Fallon in Nevada,

the Navy’s premier training wing.

Spenser’s future will be decided by how he performs in

the last remaining stage.

Almost got a little stuck.

Did you put your dream sheet in yet?

Yeah, I did it last week.

They give you a sheet of paper,

and on that sheet of paper are five options,

and you can put down from ranked one through five like

where you wanna go and what platform you want to fly.

I did Virginia first.

Virginia F-18s, and then Lemoore,

Virginia's number one, obviously.

Yeah.

That'll be really cool if we get that.

Well, yeah, because that's where, like,

our family is,

so when I'm gone, it's easier for you.

- Yeah. - But we'll see.

Not a lot of people are getting Virginia right now. So.

- Yeah. - It might work out.

When do they put in their preferences?

I think most of them have already put them in.

They rank them one through five,

but I'll put down my Mom,

my dad are all there,

and I have a brother that's in Virginia Beach,

I would like to do it for that reason.

Like great bottom of our considerations.

The consideration is how well they do.

So the best performers get their preferences?

The top, yeah, exactly.

How's it gonna feel if you have to deliver bad

news next week?

I don't want to put anybody in a position where they are

finding out not great news in front of a bunch of people.

But hey, guess what?

Like you're in the service.

This is part of what you signed up for.

All right, sweet.

Seeing the new guys come in

in their dress uniforms,

you just kinda think back to, oh, wow,

that was me at one point.

When you show up here and you see all these guys that

are at my stage right now, you're like,

they must be so good and so smart.

Then you get to this phase and you're like, oh, man,

I'm still just trying to figure it out.

You guys are going to say good riddance when

I'm out of here.

Spenser has completed his basic dogfighting

training and performed well throughout.

Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

But the final graded test called

Fighter Intercept involves a simulated combat scenario,

a scenario his instructors have flown for real

on the front line.

I was lucky enough,

I got to fly 23 combat missions um you know

into Iraq and Syria.

We were over the Gulf one time,

I'm flying a defensive position to defend the carrier group,

and there was an aircraft that came out to play,

potentially armed.

So, I was responsible that day for intercepting that aircraft.

Go figure out if it was armed.

Well, we teach fighter intercepts here,

it's the same mission.

Spenser's final exercise involves him taking

off to patrol an area.

When an unknown aircraft is discovered he has to identify,

then intercept the enemy.

This will be a high speed, dynamic dogfight in which

Spenser must try to out-maneuver the enemy

jet being flown by his instructor,

to gain the advantage and get a missile lock.

The test combines many of the toughest aspects of

training so far.

Spenser will be graded on navigation,

communication and his ability to safely push the

aircraft to its limit as he tries to get

the better of instructor Stagner,

a fighter pilot who has been dogfighting for years.

TOWER Ocean 152, cleared for takeoff

SPENSER Clear for takeoff

TOWER Hammer 2

TOWER Single radar contact 19 miles

TOWER Hammer 2, deploy west

SPENSER Yes, sir

TOWER The bogey checks out hostile

SPENSER Hammer 2, target single group

SPENSER I got ‘em

SPENSER Hammer 2, target hot

INSTRUCTOR 1 mile

INSTRUCTOR Come off the merge,

I’m off your right shoulder

We come together in what's called the merge.

SPENSER Visuals

INSTRUCTOR Visuals.

So both airplanes are nose to nose,

and we're coming on to each other.

SPENSER I got ‘em

INSTRUCTOR Merge, merge, merge

INSTRUCTOR Hammer 2, break.

INSTRUCTOR Below you

SPENSER Visuals

INSTRUCTOR Keep that pull coming right there

SPENSER Yes, sir

INSTRUCTOR Keep the pull, keep the pull

INSTRUCTOR Hammer 2, visuals

SPENSER Chaff flare, chaff flare

Success for me in fighter intercept is to keep

the fight going as long as possible.

SPENSER Keep ******* losing sight of him

You want to try to see what the other guy's doing.

SPENSER I’m blind

If I can’t see him, it makes the fighting very hard.

INSTRUCTOR Watch your airspeed

Spenser was so focused on trying to maintain

sight after he'd lost it,

that he basically forgot the most important thing about

being a pilot, which is flying the plane.

SPENSER Knock it off, OCF

012658

Lost control at one point.

I literally couldn't move my nose.

Couldn't move your nose?

So like, I went high, he went down.

I, I had my nose parked straight up,

and I was looking for him, and when I pulled,

I put the stick in my lap, and the jet didn't do anything.

The nose just stayed perfectly up.

I looked at the airspeed,

and it goes 150, 140, 130, 120,

and just keeps going down.

So once it gets below 100,

you got to knock it off because the jet's

not flying anymore.

And so I called it, and then the jet just like fell over.

The thing starts hot.

Yeah its one of those ones where bleeding off super fast.

Spenser will have to wait to find out if

flying out of control has meant he's failed.

Seat, please.

Let's see. All right.

Obviously, just you by yourself out there.

This is the fighter intercept stuff, a little bit of mistakes.

I lost sight a lot.

The jet was not accelerating.

I lost track of it, and so I just kept it there.

But you called it, knock it off, OCF.

So thank you for calling yourself out.

That'd be a different conversation had you not called

yourself out on it, right?

All right, man.

That is FTX complete.

You got any questions?

No, sir. That's everything I have.

Spenser had flown an exemplary mission

to that point,

evading a missile lock from his instructor.

This, combined with his calm handling of the stall,

means he's passed the flight and the final stage

of his training.

When you check in, you see guys,

and they are ready to move on to the fleet and

now I'm one of those guys.

I'm like, I am still so dumb.

I still have so much to learn.

But I'm also ready to move on and I think my wife's

ready to move on, too.

So hopefully we get to Virginia Beach.

Tomorrow Spenser will find out if he's done

enough over the past six months to get his first choice.

Right now, I'm driving to Patching,

which is where we find out which fleet replacement

squadron we're going to go to.

There's different options, Virginia Beach is exactly where

my wife and I have been trying to go for the past year.

All right do we want to know where you're going?

- Yeah sir! - Fantastic.

Right, about face.

Ya'll can turn around now.

The selections are already in.

You're going to lift your stein,

you're going to see the patch you're gonna go to.

You can toast each other to your success or drown

your sorrows in the bottom of your stein there.

So come on up.

On the count of three. One...

...two, three.

Let's go.

This career path inherently has a lot of

sacrifice in it.

It's tough.

Being a military Navy wife,

it's a lot about sacrifice and trying to make the best out of,

um, what you're given.

What's up?

Hey.

We're going to Virginia Beach.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We're going to Virginia Beach. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow.

I've been incredibly impressed and very proud of

what Spenser has been able to accomplish.

He's always managed to dig down deep and deliver

when it really counted,

and so I'm absolutely confident he's going to make

an excellent naval aviator.

We were sitting at the table and he finally put his patch

on the table

I breathed a sigh of relief and said, yes.

He will determine his career through his performance

and I'm sure therefore it's gonna be good.

So I'm proud of him as a son,

he has a lot to offer once he takes the next step

into the FA-18.

He's gonna live the Navy life that I wanted to do and

was not able to do.

If I fail, all the hard work will be for nothing.

-He's turning into us, right?

-No way he didn't hit the deck.

If I fail, it's my fault.

There's not a lot of forgiveness left

in this syllabus...

Power.

...For Carissa.

Power.

It may come down to the last 15 seconds of the flight.

More power.

That was a really, really brutal experience.

The truth is, for her, it may mean the end.