Lessons Learned at the Speed of Sound

This is the Truth Network. Kingdom Pursuits, where you hear from ordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into kingdom pursuits.

Now, live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robbie Dilmore. How fun today on Kingdom Pursuits. I couldn't be more excited as we have a returning guest with us, Phil Cochran. He wrote the book Lessons Learned at the Speed of Sound, a fighter pilot. Write lessons of faith.

Discipline and trust from a fighter pilot. And Phil has such a fascinating background and these lessons, he taught me so much that and I heard some stuff at the end of the last show. I had to get him back to find out more.

So welcome back, Phil. Hubby, thanks for having me back on. Happy Saturday morning. Yes, it is. It's August already.

Unbelievable, right? Hard to believe. Hard to believe. And so, Phil, where do you live? I live in Oklahoma.

And we are suffering some intense heat right now.

So it may be August 1st, but I think we're all hoping for October. Yeah, I can imagine. We're in Oklahoma. I live about an hour or forty-five minutes northeast of Oklahoma City, right in between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Wow.

Wow, that is some flat land. It is. We live out in the country. I've got 160 acres and cows and goats and Uh chickens and Uh you name it, we got it. At the end of the last show, you were talking about what you're doing now.

And obviously, it sounds like you're farming, but did you mention something about being a pastor as well? I was a pastor for 23 years of a church just outside of Perkins, Oklahoma. Just recently moved on from that. We're actually considering another church plant. But I actually, believe it or not, am in the funeral industry at the moment.

I have a business that works with about six or so funeral homes around the state of Oklahoma. helping them market to families to Plan in advance their funeral service.

So, how does the fighter pilot become a funeral planner? That's the question, right?

Well, that was the, you know, they're in not just a fighter pilot, but I find it fascinating that God has seasons, right? And obviously, He's been training you. In marvelous ways. And for those who didn't hear to the last show, which was a few weeks ago. Phil's dad?

which he never got to meet.

Well literally flew Corsairs in World War Two. Like, on, you know, off the naval aircraft carriers, like these guys that, you know, you remember Baba Blacksheep, was that the name of the show we all watched? Yeah. And these amazing airplanes that literally changed the course of our fight against the Japanese. Um and then it's so n it's so beautiful to me that you took up your dad's mantle so to speak and went on and and served, as I recall, in the Air Force.

Yes, sir. Yeah, Robbie. I always wanted to be a fighter pilot. You look at pictures of me when I was a young boy, and I was either drawing planes, or folding paper airplanes, or building airplanes, or tying a sheet to my ankles, jumping off the roof of my house, trying to fly like an airplane. Aviation was in my blood, and I always wanted to be a fighter pilot.

And I still harken back to the days, the Corsair, the P-51, the incredible machines they were, and the man versus man in his machine versus necessarily all the electronic beeps and squeaks that we have now in our modern fighter. aircraft. I don't get me wrong, it was awesome flying the F sixteen, but sometimes you hearken back to those days where they were the true knights of the sky, yanking and banking and man against man. Yeah, and it's It's it's an issue of war that really you would understand like all that that's going on right now in Iran. Right?

That we hear that, oh, well, there were 4,000 bombings or whatever there were last night, and these things happened. But if you're actually the one in the cockpit, this is a lot different. This is really real for you. As you can imagine, what these guys are experiencing doing sortie after sortie, right? Right.

And it's so warfare has changed as far as military warfare and how we combat in those situations. While the methods have changed, the overall strategy or the overall aspect of war always remains somewhat constant. Don't take me wrong in how I'm saying that. I guess I'm trying to relate it back to my book. You know, Satan always has similar goals.

but his strategy or his methods change over the generations. Sex and awareness of gender. We're combating so many things in the political arena from pro-life to To abolishing abortion altogether, those types of strategies where Satan is. is combating the truth of God's word through lies. And people are accepting those lies because the scripture says their eyes are blind, their ears are stopped.

And we need to pray for blind eyes to be opened and stopped ears to be uncovered so that people can hear and obey the truth. Oh, absolutely. And I know that that's always Um Been a huge way that people act in combat is to cut off communications. Both by sight and by hearing, right? That if you can cut off the communication within the enemy, like that that leaves them vulnerable, feeling like they're by themselves.

And those kind of things that Satan clearly uses, that strategy. And lies often isolate us as well. And so when you think about. Um That idea And the strategies that you used. As a fighter pilot, what comes to mind is the way that you would combat those or, you know, what.

tactics would you use to come against those lies in your own family. Right, well, you mentioned the communication aspect of it. And that's so important that number one, if I was going to be successful as a fighter pilot, I needed to have open lines of communication between me and my other flight members, my wingmen. And then also that to let's say the the AWACS planes that fly around overhead that are giving you the big picture battlefield, the big battlefield picture. You needed to have those lines of communication open.

And it's the same in our Christian lives, right? Number one, we need to have constant open communication with our family. We need to make sure that those lines of communication are always unhindered. By keeping accounts short on one another, by the aspect of love, right? Love is patient and kind, it suffers long, it doesn't bear a grudge.

You know, the 2 Corinthians or 1 Corinthians chapter 13 aspect. And that's important, right? But the same thing is true if I'm going to be successful as a father or a husband. I need to be sure and keep my line of communication open with My AWACS or my overall big picture of the battlefield, and that's keeping my prayer life and my study of God's Word constant. And the other means of God's grace in our lives, keeping plugged into a church.

You know, the word says, do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together, as is the manner of some. Too many today are failing to attend a church regularly. They're failing, especially after COVID. Too many people think that attending church is the same thing as plugging it on the T V and watching a Sunday morning message. But we need to be rubbing shoulders with other Christians.

We need to have those wingmen outside of our own family that are watching over us and guiding us and keeping us on the right course. and checking our six, looking behind us to see what enemies are rolling in behind us. All of that is important when it comes to keeping communication open vertically and horizontally in our lives. Oh, it's so beautiful and I You know, I'm a pastor myself. I don't know if you knew that.

And of a very small church. But I love that. You know what, Robin?

So many faithful churches anymore are small, is what I'm finding. That we really do life together. In other words, August 14th, we're actually all going camping. And then we're going to go to the Church of the Frescoes. We're going to go to Tweetsy Railroad with the kids on Saturday, worship together on Sunday.

And when you're really all together, And you know these kids intimately. You know each family. It feels like they're your wingman, right? Like, and you're their wingman. It's a beautiful thing.

I love your illustrations.

So we'll be right back with a whole lot more Kingdom Pursuits. Of course, we've got to play shenanigans. Very fun. We got some good stuff for you. We'll be right back with a whole lot more.

Stay tuned. Yeah. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion. And uses it to build the kingdom.

So fun today, we have back Phil Cochran: Lessons Learned at the Speed of Sound of Fighter Pilots, Lessons on Faith, Discipline, and Trust. Amazing opportunity today to dig into these ideas. By the way, his book is at kingdompursuits.com. You can click on it there and order that. What an amazing opportunity to really see some things that you may not have realized how God's Um Principles Are taught in so many different ways, in so many different lights, that we get a chance to see these things.

So, as promised, speaking of pilots.

Now it's fine. Oh, yes, it is. And I'm really glad to get a chance to get away from it. Get to do this with my old friend Keith was my producer. Nick is on a mission trip or something to Barbados.

And so we got Keith back with us today. Hello. years ago.

So Keith, I hope you're warmed up on your uh Your punability. Yeah, and Phil now knows the game, so he knows how to play a little bit.

So, Phil, are you ready? Mm-hmm. Still with us, I hope.

Alright, so. Actually the music's a little loud. I'm sorry teeth.

So, what did the instructor at the School for Kamikaze Pilots say to his students? What did the instructor at the School for Kamikaze Pilots say to his students? What did he say? Phil, you got any ideas? Uh Wonder if we lost Phil during the break.

Anyway... He said, I'm here.

Sorry. Not on that one. I don't have anything. You will now. Watch closely, I'm only gonna do this once.

Now this may be a third grade joke, but it just makes me laugh, so I gotta say it.

So why did the pilot blush? Why? Oh I've heard this before. Yeah, because he saw the airstrip. Oh my Yeah, I'm sorry.

I think that's dead that's fire. And this is along those same lines. Why do aircraft propellers? What do they say? to good pilots.

What do propellers say to good pilots? I give up. You heard that one? Yeah, nope, don't have that one either. They say I'm a huge fan.

Huge fan, they really are. And and this one may be the the robbiest of the group. But it really, really makes me laugh.

So what did German Pilots eat for breakfast. What did German Pilots eat for breakfast. Schnitzel? I don't know. I like that.

It's loof waffles. Oh my god. Yeah. Okay. It really does make me laugh.

And so you knew at the end of those shenanigans, we actually would have a riddle for you to call in and win today. Mm-hmm. And so we would love to hear your calls at 866-348-7884. And this is. probably one of the funniest one of these I've done in years is why did the popes Yeah.

Aviators The Pope's aviators sound like Christ killers. You know. 866 Why did the Pope's again? You can call in and win on this one, and we got all sorts of stuff. Why did the Pope's aviators sound like Christ killers 866348?

7-884-86634-TRUTH. And if they can guess that. Keith, tell them what they'll win.

Well, they can win one of our fantastic prizes from the King of Pursuits Prize Valley, like an action Bible or a backscratcher. The gospel backscratcher with the legendary. That's a difference. And we have Narcam again in inventory.

So all you have to do is tell us why the Pope's aviators.

sound like Christ killers. It's a fascinating thing when you think about it. 866-348-7884.

So getting back to Phil and lessons learned. At the at the s speed of sound. Um And and that thought in and of itself, right? is I guess why they use young people to be pilots. I mean, things happen quick up there.

Exactly, yeah. When you consider that you're coming at one another at over 500 miles an hour.

So A forty mile range maybe with what I might pick somebody up on the radar? And within a minute and a half or so. I mean, you're at the merge and what we would say in the phone booth, so to speak, turning with that adversary.

So not a lot of time to react. It was as much a mental game as it was a physical game though, because when you're in that merge and you're pulling nine Gs and You're sitting here at 1G right now, and whatever you weigh, I weigh about 170 pounds. take that times nine and as you pull nine G's that's what you're feeling like you're experiencing in the in the jet.

So it's very much a physical game, too. And uh and then as I taught years the the word of God to my congregation, I began to realize how many spiritual truths can come out of those aviation and fighter pilots. principles and lessons that I learned and that's why I wrote the book. Wow. You know, you guys wore a G-suit, obviously, to try to help your body with that the physical reality of what's going on there.

But Literally, you can pass out as a result of some of those maneuvers, right? Right. Yeah. Yes. And and so Wonderful analogy.

Well, for instance, when you pull G's, when you pull especially the more Gs you pull, and we would go up on every sortie before we, on a practice sortie, a training mission, before we ever pull. Pulled any Gs at all, we did what were called geowareness maneuvers to figure out, because each day your body might be a little better or worse suited to pulling G's. If you didn't get much sleep the last night, or if you were dehydrated, if you were just tired and worn out, your body would react differently.

So we did these geo-awareness maneuvers just to. Kind of cue ourselves into how our body was prepared to pull G's, because if you pull back on the stick, The blood wants to drain from your head, and you would do what's called a G-strain to try and keep the blood up in the upper part of your body to keep the oxygen in your brain. And at different times, you might do a geo rareness maneuver and realize that, you know what, I'm just not up to it today. We need to keep our Gs down or our G levels down or I just need to go back and land. But we had G suits that we would strap on, and those G suits were very tight.

They had bladders in them that would inflate when you pull G's in the aircraft. It helped you to have something to strain against to push against, to keep the blood up in the upper part of your body. They the G suit in and of itself only gave about maybe one G or so of a additional protection, but it was that ability to strain against something that really helped. And that That Jisu was extremely uncomfortable. if it was cinched up the right way, you didn't want to walk out to the jet with it cinched up.

I mean, it just was not something you felt comfortable in. But when you got in the cockpit and sat down, you would zip that up. And even though it was tight and even though it was constricting, You knew it was life-giving. You knew it was going to help you. And so you did it because you needed it.

And the same thing is true when you think of the word of God. When Jesus talks in Matthew chapter 7, he says, enter by the narrow gate. and that the way is narrow. And that narrow way, that narrow gate, if you look at the word, it's compressed. It's the same word that's used when the crowds were pressing in on Jesus as his teaching.

And so that compression is good. We need to be feeling, just like I needed to feel the compression of that G-suit, we need to feel the compression of that narrow way to prove, to show that we're on the right path. If we don't feel that compression in our lives as we are Sanctified by the Word of God and kept on the right path through the truth of God's Word and through following our Savior and our Redeemer and also our Lord. Don't forget that part of it. If we don't feel a compression, then we have reason to ask ourselves: Am I truly on the narrow way?

It's too beautiful. And I would add, it's a beautiful thing in Mark 10. You know, 29 and 30. He talks about he who gives up mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and lands for my sake and the sake of the gospel will not fail to receive 100 times as many, which is an amazing thing when you really realize how many mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers you've had and lands. But he saves the best for last, interestingly, according to the Beatitudes, because the last Beatitude talks about the persecutions.

And same thing in Mark 10, 30. It says, at the end of this list of all this wonderful stuff, you're going to get 100 mothers and 100 sisters and brothers. Oh, yeah, and you get persecutions too. Right? And it's saved our best life now, but not as many people think, right?

It's counterintuitive, but it's exactly what you're talking about because. We want to make sure that we're on the right path, right? We want to make sure that we're prepared. You know, I think about your analogy that, oh my goodness, you're on a regular mission, you know, just. Flying out doing reconnaissance or whatever, and the next thing you know, incoming, man.

I mean, and you got to be ready for f for whatever geez you may have to pull in that moment or whatever to save your life or the life of your ship or whatever it is that you're Um in battle for that's that's Wow. What a neat thing. I'm so glad that you went there.

Well, Christians, you know, even in our sinfulness, because We don't like to be constrained. I mean, our flesh wants that open idea of what we think freedom is, right? The ability to do whatever we want. But I was just, my family and I were talking about this at the table last night. Freedom is not the ability to do whatever you want, it's the responsibility to do as you ought to do.

And the Word of God is what teaches us what we ought to be doing. And that's where we have true freedom: freedom from sin, freedom from the bondage of sin.

So it's very important. Yeah, like William Wallace said, what will you do with that freedom? Yeah, exactly. That's beautiful. Exactly.

All right, well, we got Miss J. She thinks she has an answer to why the Pope's aviators sound like Christ killers. And I'm very excited about that when we come back. We got more of Phil's book, right? Lessons Learned at the Speed of Sound: a fighter pilot's lessons.

On faith, discipline, and trust. It's all there at kingdompursuits.com. We'll be right back with a whole lot more. Yeah. Communism is on the rise in America.

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We're the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Uh Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom and so fun. Today, we've got Phil Cochran on with us. Lessons Learned at the Speed of Sound, a fighter pilot's lessons on faith, discipline, and trust. And right now we got Miss Jay because she thinks she knows why do the Pope's aviators sound like Christ killers.

Miss Jay? Yes, you know, you got both my ears. I think it's because of the bellowing that they were shouting out and doing. The bellowing. There you go.

That's a great answer. You're exactly right. And we're going to. send you out your your choice, but Describe the bellowing for me.

Well, the belling is like making a deep, loud roar and shouting loudly with force. Wow. Bellowing. Yeah. You know?

What I actually thought. Although I like your answer a lot, and I'm certainly uh in agreement with you. Um as always. And you really think about if they were the popes aviators are actually Pontiff pilots. Exactly.

But I'm sensing about the pilot the sky, how the sky's a blue. I know, you're blowing. Oh, you got it. I got it. Like like You know What's it?

It is well with my soul. Yes, yes, yes. The bellowing. The bellowing. It's a song that I can say that, yeah.

The heavy milk. The pontiff pilots going through the belly. And all that loud noise. It's like, wait a minute. They're coming in the army.

Yes, I get it.

Well, God bless you, Miss Jay. I appreciate you calling in so much. Thank you for calling today. You have an amazing week. I got your bed.

You know, I got you. Oh, you do. You absolutely do. Always. God bless.

Have a great week. Bye-bye. You too. Bye. All right, getting back to Phil?

Um And these lessons learned at the speed of Of sound and a lot of what you talked about in the last show, which I think. Um is so beautiful that you know, when I heard the word discipline when I first came to Christ, it was not didn't have these connotations like, oh goody, I get to learn some discipline.

However, the the word disciple Which also means enthusiastic learner, but it is the root of the word, right? Of something that comes from the This discipline. And when you think about a fighter pilot, oh my goodness, the disciplines that you had to have. Right. Right.

Really, that's one of the aspects of of Why I would love for everyone to purchase the book and what I want them to walk away from it is that as pilots, and I might have mentioned this on your last show, but as fighter pilots, we didn't just accidentally succeed. I mean, we had to train, we had to prepare, we had to brief. We had to execute that brief, and that's everything that as Christians were supposed to do. But then part of the discipline was not just coming down from a sortie. I mean, we might spend hours preparing for a flight.

We might only fly it for an hour. And when we landed, we didn't just high-five everybody and say, okay, hey, we'll see you tomorrow. We'll do the same thing. We spent time debriefing. We spent hours debriefing that sortie.

That was the most important part of a training mission, was the debrief. because we got to talk about what we did right, what we did wrong, how we could have done better and the steps, the action steps we were going to take to do better on the next sortie. And as Christians, so many of us fly our lives at the speed of sound. We leave the house with a very little time in the Word of God or prayer, maybe in the morning. We come home at night, we're exhausted, flip on the T V, we start scrolling through social media, and before we know it, it's bedtime.

And we've never really spent any time reflecting or debriefing ourselves on how we did that day and what we did good, what we did bad, and maybe how we could do better, and then what steps. are we going to take tomorrow to do better than we did today? And I would encourage everyone to spend a little bit of time every evening, maybe as they're laying in bed, falling asleep, just kind of going through a mental debrief of the day. And taking the time to do that, knowing that we don't do it in the power of our own strength, we don't pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. But we do it through the strength of the Holy Spirit, and yet we are commanded to discipline ourselves, to buffet our bodies, to run the race towards the prize.

And so that would be an encouragement. I want everybody to get away from the book. Absolutely. In fact, it was one of the takeaways that I had from you being on before that I applied myself. Um as I've I've There's a I can't tell you the exact verse, but it's in the 119th Psalm.

For David says, I remember thy name. In the night, O Lord, and and and that idea of like being In a dream or whatever, and being able to feel God in the midst of your sleep is what I'm talking about. It has always been.

Something, well, not always, but for the last probably 10 years, something that I've striven. And so, my prayers, as I, you know, prepare to sleep, I'm looking for that. Like, Lord, help me. helped me get to that place where You know, I get that rest I need so I can take G's the next day, right? Because it doesn't just necessarily happen that way.

And I couldn't agree with you more that based on what you're doing, the last twenty, thirty minutes before you go to sleep. uh is going to greatly affect And what a neat idea that you and you know I had Okay. Prayer time, so to speak, before I went to sleep, but I didn't have that in the equation of, okay, let's debrief this, Lord, and the intimacy of that. Um and the kindness of God in prayer towards me all the time. Like, man, I think, and I'm sure you've experienced this as a pastor, if you've ever given a sermon or if you've given a Sunday school lesson, same experience, right?

Man, you just think you, or a radio show, by the way. You just think, man, that was horrible. I can't believe I forgot this, this, this, and this, this, and this, right? And then you go to God with that. rather than to other people.

It's amazing how kind he is to you and reassuring to you in prayer. Have you experienced that? Oh, amen. Yeah, the wonderful, my wife uses a humorous example from Pastor Joel Beeke. I don't know if you ever listened to him or not, but he would come down out of the pulpit, and he said his wife was his greatest encourager, but also his greatest critic, or something along those lines.

And he said that he would ask her, Well, how was the message today? And she would say, Well, they can't all be your best. And there's a lot of humbling that comes with a pastor. Number one, because, and I can't remember the Puritan that said this, but.

Something to the extent that if a pastor is not preaching to himself first, Then he should fall at the altar before ever getting into the pulpit. That's my own paraphrase.

so much of the conviction of my Christian life came even as I was preaching and teaching the Word of God. I was preaching and teaching it to myself also. I love that. I hadn't heard that either.

So now I can because. you know, it's it's so easy to get up there and you know, wander the but but the real question is You know, what do I do with all that?

Okay, now what's the now how can I improve my relationship with God, with my family, with other people, except love other people? What do I do with that information? which is preaching. Right. Right.

And we don't want to be as men looking in the mirror and then walking away unchanged, right? Like James talks about. Exactly. And so that's which again gets back to the disciplines that you learn Um had a really, really neat experience that I had this eighty-year-old pastor who was He's probably 90 now. And He he heard that I was going to be a pastor and he gave me a list of things that he carried in his pocket.

Of all these different little truisms, like, you know, things like, you know. Don't be so concerned about anybody's opinion but God's, you know, those kind of things. But also, one of my favorites was: he says, Never mention your age, don't even think about it. Right, right. And just little, you know.

Tidbits that come from all that experience, again, of what God is training you, and clearly He did that. You know, as as a fighter pilot, And You know, one of the most amazing things and I would love you to speak on this from my standpoint. is I'll never forget my father Shoot, I I can't tell that story.

Well, I'll begin to tell it anyway. He bought these Cox model airplanes for us as a kid. And he proceeded to never let us fly him because he always crashed them. They would take off, and he thought you needed to pull up on the elevator all the way. And so the plane would just sky into the air, stall, and crash, right?

Right. And there's a huge lesson in that, I think. I would love. your insight when we come back. Stay tuned.

Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion. And uses it to build the kingdom.

And we have been so blessed today to have with us Phil Cochran with his book, Lessons Learned at the Speed of Sound. A fighter pilot's lessons on faith, discipline, and trust. Of course, that's available at kingdompursuits.com or Amazon or anywhere. You get your books. Just, again, lessons learned at the speed of sound.

And I can see that, man, there are a lot of amazing lessons. But the lesson that I learned about flying from my father.

Okay. Which I know he's up there laughing with me right now. You know, you can imagine as a kid, you know, you're 9, 12, whatever you were, and we get this beautiful, you know, P-51 Mustang Cox. You know, if you ever saw these little had gas engines that were there, they actually ran on sort of nitro fuel. And He bought the first one.

Starts it, pulls up on the, you know, he never it just flies straight up, goes up, comes down, crashes, breaks into a thousand pieces. He goes and buys the second one. He does exactly. I mean, it was something like you'd see on America's funniest home videos. Then he goes, Well, maybe I need to learn how to fly before I use these fast airplanes.

So he buys a. I think it was um the PT nineteen trainer. um, what it was. And then he crashed that about six or seven times until he finally learned that, man, you just don't pull straight up on the stick when you take off in that kind of plane anyway.

So what's your insight with that? Those model planes, those RC planes are so overpowered. I mean, there's just an incredible amount of power in that engine with the light aircraft that's behind it.

So it likens me, I think, to the idea of The Block 50 F16 that I flew over in Japan, we called the GE big mouth engine. Most of the time in the F16, even though it had so much power, In the other models I flew, the other versions I flew, at 15,000 feet, if I went into a 9G turn, Because of the forces on the aircraft, it would bleed off energy.

So I might start at nine Gs and then it might settle down to. six or seven a little more comfortably if I was maintaining my turn. But in the Block fifty at fifteen thousand feet, I could go into full afterburner, pull back at nine G's and it would continue accelerating to the point where you finally had to let up on the stick when you got to your physical limits. It wasn't an aircraft limit, it was a physical limit of the pilot. And so that was a lot of power.

You could take off and be at altitude within a few seconds up to thirty thousand feet, and it just had an incredible amount of power. But with that power, came the responsibility to use it with discipline. It had to be power under control. Just like in those model airplanes that your father flew, the power had to be controlled properly. And that reminds me of the word meekness in Scripture.

We think oftentimes, I mean, we know Jesus was meek, and we're to follow Christ and be meek in turn. And sometimes we equate meekness with weakness. But meekness is actually power under control. It doesn't mean I mean Christ had all the power, he was omnipotent, had all the power in the universe, right? But it was controlled.

And we need to have that same control in our lives. And we are called to reflect Christ's meekness, that spirit-controlled strength, and to practice restraint. When insulted, to bless when wronged, to endure with patience when we're provoked. Because our Lord conquered through humility, we need to overcome pride and do that same thing.

So the F-16 is flown best when it's not flown recklessly. I mean, I could actually burn up the engine or break the jet if I did it wrong without discipline. But we need to have all that power in our own lives under control. That's beautiful. Wow, I did not know.

that they had different engines in them. Um, but that would make sense that wow. If you had all that power, the big mouth engine, huh? Yeah, exactly. And so, how many years did you actually fly jets?

I flew JET for twenty three years. I was blessed to fly my entire Air Force career, either in the F sixteen as an instructor pilot in the F sixteen and then also an instructor pilot in the T thirty eight, which is the advanced flight trainer. I was an instructor pilot in it for thirteen years at Advance Air Force Base in Oklahoma. And so here comes this. You are obviously an instructor.

So here comes this young whipper snapper. And imagine meekness is not exactly what they're full of at that point in time. How did you instruct them in a way that that helped them there?

Well, pride is a hindrance in any area of our lives, right? I mean, the scripture says pride goes before destruction. If a young man or a young lady, as I got towards the end of my career, did not have meekness or humility, they often didn't do as well as they would have done if they displayed that. You are humbled very quickly in pilot training. Here I was, I was always the top of my class in school and in academics and always in pretty good physical condition.

And so I thought a lot of myself, kind of that top gun swagger that you have when you show up to pilot training. And then you realize that all these other people here with me are also in their top 10% of their class, and they're also in top physical condition. And I'm not all that great. I'm not as fantastic as I thought I was. And then you start flying and you realize just How much there is to learn.

So it takes humility. And I often wanted to see out of a student, you know, scripture says the righteous man falls. Seven times, but rises again. I wanted to see students that failed and rose again. That's what I was looking for.

Absolutely, may we all do that. I hate we're out of time. Again, Phil.

So much fun having you on. I am so grateful for your time with us and for your work on this book. Again, Lessons Learned at the Speed of Sound. How you can find it at kingdompursuits.com or wherever, and I'll give you the last word, just a moment. Robbie, I want to mention Church and Family Life, the publisher.

They are an incredible ministry that focuses on strong families and strong churches through the sufficient word of God.

So, Church and Family Life is also where you can get the book, but I appreciate you putting it up at Kingdom Pursuits also. Wonderful. Thank you again, Phil. Thank you guys for listening. We'll be back.

Thank you. Mm-hmm.