Hey everyone, welcome back to My Weird Prompts. I am Corn, and I am sitting here in our living room in Jerusalem with my brother. It is a bit of a heavy one today, but honestly, it is something we have all been thinking about quite a bit lately.
Herman Poppleberry here. And you are right, Corn. This prompt from our housemate Daniel really gets to the heart of the tension we have been feeling. Daniel was asking about the reality of being a pilot on a mission against Iran. He pointed out something that often gets overlooked in the big geopolitical headlines: the sheer youth of the people in those cockpits. We are talking about pilots in their early twenties, often briefed only hours before they have to execute one of the most complex military operations in history.
It is a staggering thought. When I was twenty-two, I was stressed out about midterms and whether I had enough coffee to get through a night of studying. These pilots are managing millions of dollars of hardware and the weight of national security. Daniel mentioned the twelve day war from last summer and the feeling that we might be looking at a round two. It makes the technical and psychological aspects he asked about even more relevant. Herman, you have been digging into the training and the tech side of this. Where does that even begin? How do you prepare a twenty-three year old for something like this?
It starts much earlier than the mission briefing, Corn. The Israeli Air Force selection process is legendary for its intensity. It begins with the Gibush, which is basically a multi day physical and mental gauntlet designed to break you. They are looking for more than just flying skill. They are looking for cognitive flexibility. By the time a pilot is actually assigned to a squadron, they have gone through a three year flight academy where they also earn a university degree. But even after that, they are still kids in the eyes of most of the world. The high washout rate, which people sometimes call the Katzir or the harvest, means that only the most resilient remain.
Right, but there is a difference between being resilient in a training exercise over the Negev and actually crossing international borders toward a hostile integrated air defense system. Daniel asked about that specific pressure of being briefed only hours before takeoff. That seems like a deliberate choice for operational security, but it must be a massive shock to the system.
It is the ultimate test of what Hasard Lee calls the art of clear thinking. He is a former F-35 instructor who wrote a great book on this. The idea is to have your baseline skills so deeply ingrained that when the unexpected happens, or when the pressure spikes, you have the mental bandwidth to actually solve problems. When those pilots get the call, they are not starting from scratch. They have flown thousands of hours in simulators. They have practiced the specific routes, the refueling points, and the target profiles. But you are right, the weight of the actual mission is different. You are flying over thousands of kilometers of territory where you are not exactly welcome.
Let’s talk about that distance. To get from here to Iran, you are looking at a flight path that likely crosses multiple countries. That is a long time to be in a cockpit, especially if you are in a single seat fighter like an F-35 or an F-16. How do they handle the logistics of that? Daniel mentioned the technical complexity of air defenses, but the sheer endurance seems like a hurdle on its own.
It is a massive hurdle. Aerial refueling is the backbone of any mission like this. Israel relies heavily on its fleet of modified Boeing seven hundred and seven tankers, known as the Re’em. These are aging aircraft, but they are the lifeline. Imagine being a young pilot, it is the middle of the night, you are over a desert thousands of miles from home, and you have to hook up to a flying gas station while maintaining total radio silence. If you miss that connection, the mission is over, or worse, you don’t have enough fuel to get back.
And while they are doing that, they are probably being painted by radar from every direction. This brings us to the air defense question. Iran has invested heavily in systems like the S-300 PMU-2. These are not toys. They are sophisticated, long range surface to air missiles. When a pilot enters that airspace, what does the cockpit actually look like? Are they seeing a million red lights, or is it more subtle than that?
In a modern fifth generation jet like the F-35, it is actually surprisingly clean. The goal of modern avionics is to reduce the pilot’s cognitive load. Instead of a bunch of individual gauges, they have a massive touch screen and a helmet mounted display. The system does something called sensor fusion. It takes data from the radar, the electronic warfare suite, and even other planes in the formation, and it creates a single picture of the battlefield. It will show them a ring on the map that represents the lethal range of a missile battery. The pilot’s job is to stay outside that ring or use electronic warfare to punch a hole through it.
You mentioned electronic warfare. That was another part of Daniel’s prompt. We often think of warfare as just missiles and bombs, but there is this invisible layer of combat happening simultaneously. How does that play out for a pilot? Are they actively jamming signals, or is the plane doing that automatically?
It is a bit of both. The F-35 has a suite called the ASQ-239, which is a highly advanced electronic warfare system. It can identify, locate, and track enemy radar emissions. It can even jam them with incredible precision. But the pilot still has to make tactical decisions. If they see a new radar pop up that wasn’t in the briefing, they have to decide: do I jam it and risk giving away my position, or do I try to fly around it? This is where that early twenties brain is actually an advantage. There is some research suggesting that younger people are better at processing rapid fire visual information and switching between complex tasks.
That is a fascinating point. We often think of youth as a liability because of a lack of experience, but maybe in a high tech cockpit, that neuroplasticity is exactly what you want. It reminds me of what we discussed back in episode three hundred and sixty-two about the geometry of secrets and how complexity can be a shield. In this case, the complexity of the onboard systems is what allows a human to survive in an environment that is fundamentally lethal to humans.
Exactly. And let’s not forget the sheer speed of everything. When you are flying at Mach one point six, things happen fast. If a missile is launched at you, you might have only seconds to react. You have to trust your flare and chaff dispensers, you have to execute high G maneuvers, and you have to keep track of your wingman. It is a level of multi tasking that is almost impossible to imagine.
I want to go back to the psychological side for a moment. Daniel mentioned that these pilots are briefed only hours before. In the history of the Israeli Air Force, like the Osirak raid in nineteen eighty-one or the strike on the Syrian reactor in two thousand seven, the pilots often didn’t know the full scope of the mission until very late. How do they keep their cool? You are sitting in a briefing room, someone tells you that you are about to fly a mission that could literally change the course of global history, and then you have to walk out to your plane and do a pre flight check.
It is about compartmentalization. They focus on the checklist. Oxygen? Check. Flight controls? Check. Navigation waypoints? Check. By focusing on the small, manageable tasks, they prevent the enormity of the mission from overwhelming them. There is also a huge amount of trust involved. They trust the intelligence officers who planned the route, they trust the ground crews who loaded the munitions, and they trust their commanders. It is a collective effort. Even though there is only one person in that cockpit, there are hundreds of people behind them.
It makes me think about the burden of responsibility. If something goes wrong, it is not just a tactical failure. It could be a diplomatic disaster. Flying through international airspace requires a delicate dance. Sometimes there are quiet agreements with other countries, and sometimes it is a matter of staying below the radar, literally and figuratively. The pressure to not make a mistake that triggers a wider conflict must be immense.
Absolutely. And that is why the training focuses so much on ethics and decision making. They are taught that just because you have a target in your sights doesn’t mean you should always pull the trigger. If they see civilians, or if the situation on the ground has changed in a way that makes the mission too risky, they are expected to have the maturity to abort. That is a lot to ask of a twenty-one year old. But that is the standard they are held to.
We talked about the S-300, but there is also the threat of Iranian interceptors. Iran still flies older planes like the F-14 Tomcat and the F-4 Phantom, along with some newer Russian models. How much of a threat are those in a modern context? Does a pilot in an F-35 even worry about a dogfight anymore?
The era of the classic dogfight, like you see in movies, is mostly over. Modern air combat is about BVR, or beyond visual range. The goal is to see the enemy and shoot them down before they even know you are there. An F-35 has such a low radar cross section that it can get very close to older planes without being detected. But Iran has been working on their own radar networks and trying to integrate their systems with Russian help. There is always the risk of a lucky shot or a coordinated ambush. The pilots are trained for every scenario, including air to air combat, but the hope is always to use stealth and electronic warfare to avoid it entirely.
This really highlights the evolution of warfare. It is becoming less about physical brawn and more about information dominance. If you have better data, you win. Daniel’s question about how they handle the technical aspects really points to this. It is like they are flying a supercomputer that also happens to have wings and missiles.
That is exactly what it is. And the pilots are the system administrators. They are managing data flows as much as they are flying the plane. It is interesting you mentioned the information side, because that is where the electronic warfare gets really deep. It is not just about jamming; it is about deception. You can make an enemy radar see ten planes where there is only one, or make it look like you are miles away from your actual position. It is a digital hall of mirrors.
Let’s talk about the return trip. You have completed your mission, the adrenaline is starting to fade, but you still have a three hour flight home. You are probably low on fuel, you have to hit another tanker, and you are still in hostile or semi hostile airspace. That seems like the most dangerous part in some ways, just because of the fatigue.
Fatigue management is a huge part of the mission planning. They use various techniques to stay alert, but there is no substitute for the sheer relief of crossing back into friendly airspace. The debriefing starts the moment they land. They have to download all the data from the plane, talk through every decision they made, and help the intelligence teams understand what happened. There is no time to just go home and sleep.
It is a remarkable life. I think Daniel’s prompt really humanizes a topic that we usually only see through the lens of satellite photos and dry news reports. These are young people with families and lives here in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv or the Galilee, and they are carrying this incredible burden.
It really does. And it makes you realize how much we depend on their professionalism. Whether you agree with the politics of the missions or not, the technical and psychological feat of executing them is undeniable. It is a combination of cutting edge technology and the oldest human traits: courage, discipline, and trust.
So, looking forward, how do you see this changing? As AI becomes more integrated into the cockpit, does the role of the pilot change? Do we still need a twenty-two year old in the seat, or does it become a remote operation?
That is the big question for the next decade. We are already seeing the development of loyal wingman drones, where a piloted jet controls a swarm of unmanned aircraft. But for the most sensitive missions, the ones with the highest stakes, there is still a strong belief that you need a human on the scene. Someone who can sense the nuances of a situation that an algorithm might miss. The human in the loop is still the ultimate fail safe.
That makes sense. An AI might be better at calculating a flight path, but it doesn’t understand the weight of a national mission the way a person does. Herman, this has been a really enlightening deep dive. It is a lot to process, especially living where we do.
It really is. I think the key takeaway for me is just the sheer scale of the preparation. Nothing is left to chance, but in the end, it still comes down to the individual in that seat.
Well, I think we have covered a lot of ground today. From the training academy to the electronic warfare suites, it is clear that modern aerial warfare is a world of its own.
Definitely. And it is a world that is constantly evolving. What was true five years ago might not be true today. We have to keep learning and keep asking these kinds of questions.
Absolutely. And speaking of questions, we really appreciate Daniel sending this one in. It pushed us to look at the human side of something that often feels very mechanical. If you are listening and you found this interesting, we would really appreciate it if you could leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. It really helps other people find the show.
It really does. We love seeing the community grow. And remember, you can find all our past episodes on Spotify and at our website, myweirdprompts.com. We have covered everything from military probes to the geometry of secrets, so there is plenty to dive into if you are new here.
Like episode three hundred and sixty-three where we talked about the anatomy of failure in military probes. It actually connects quite well to what we were saying about the pressure to avoid mistakes.
That is a great point. The stakes are so high that any failure is scrutinized for years. It is a tough environment to work in.
Well, I think that is a wrap for today. Thanks for joining us on this deep dive into the cockpit.
Thanks everyone. It has been a pleasure. Until next time.
This has been My Weird Prompts. We will see you in the next episode.
Take care, everyone.
Herman, I think we should go grab some lunch. All this talk of flight rations and adrenaline has made me hungry.
Sounds like a plan, Corn. Let’s see if Daniel is around, maybe he wants to join us.
Good idea. He probably has five more prompts ready to go.
I wouldn’t doubt it for a second. That is the beauty of living with him. There is never a dull moment.
True that. Alright, let’s head out.
See you guys later. Thanks for listening to My Weird Prompts.
Bye everyone.
I wonder if we should have talked more about the specific fuel capacity of the Re’em tankers. It is actually quite fascinating how they modified those old seventy-sevens.
Maybe in the next one, Herman. I think we gave them enough technical details for one day.
You are probably right. I tend to get a bit carried away with the specs.
That is why I am here to keep us on track.
And I appreciate it. Alright, lunch time.
Let’s go.
One more thing, did you know the first Israeli pilots were actually trained on old Czech versions of the Messerschmitt? It is amazing how far they have come in seventy-five years.
Okay, now you are definitely monologuing. Let’s get that food.
Guilty as charged. Let’s go.
Thanks again for listening, everyone. We really value your support and your curiosity. It is what keeps this show going.
Absolutely. Keep those prompts coming. You can use the contact form on our website if you have something you want us to explore.
We will catch you in the next one.
Bye!
Bye!
Wait, did I mention the helmet mounted displays? They cost about four hundred thousand dollars each.
Herman!
Okay, okay, I’m done. Let’s go.
Seriously, though, that is an insane amount of money for a helmet.
Well, it’s not just a helmet, it’s a computer. But yeah, it’s wild.
Alright, for real this time, goodbye everyone.
Goodbye!
We are actually leaving now.
Yes, we are.
Okay, good.
But seriously, the sensor fusion...
Herman!
Sorry. Let's go.
This has been episode three hundred and sixty-five of My Weird Prompts. We hope you enjoyed it. Check out our website at myweirdprompts.com for more.
And don't forget to follow us on Spotify. See you next week!
See you next week.
Bye!
Bye!
I'm really hungry now.
Me too. Let's find some hummus.
Perfect.
Alright, signing off.
Signing off.
Peace.
Peace.
And we are out.
Out.
Really out.
Yes.
Okay.
Bye.
Bye.
(silence)
(silence)
One more thing...
No!
Just kidding. Let's go.
You almost had me.
I know.
Let's go.
Okay.
(door closes)
