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Transcript of interview with Col. Brill
Deseret News (Salt Lake City), May 5, 2008
The following is a minimally edited transcript of a Friday telephone interview the Deseret News conducted with Lt. Col. Mike "Brillo" Brill, who is deployed at Balad Air Base in Iraq, hours after a flying mission that pushed him past the 6,000-hour mark in the cockpit of an F-16.
DN: What was the nature of the flying mission today where you crossed the 6,000-hour mark?
Brill: Actually it was a fairly routine sortie, which is the way most of them have been going recently. With the surge operation that started, there was a lot of drama, I guess I could use the best word, in the fall with the guys having to respond to troops in contact situations and deliver ordinance. But it has actually slowed down significantly since the, about, Christmas time frame. Most of what we have done in the past two months is just, in the simplest term, just make noise, just keep the bad guys hunkered down in their holes right now, where we've got them now, and keep them there.
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Today's sortie, there were two different operations, which is the way most of the missions are tasked: You're airborne typically between three and a half to four and a half hours. Today's was actually a tad shorter than that. But usually you head out to one of the areas around Baghdad or up to Mosul or down around Basra. You work there for an hour, hour and a half and then go to a tanker.
Then you'll move on to a separate operation away from that. For today we were first on a mission that was what they call "armed overwatch," which is again, we're just overhead. The operation that's going on, to be there in case they start taking fire and then to put the bad guys down.
And the second portion of the flight was tactical reconnaissance, where we were working on one of the main roadways that runs between Mosul and Baghdad, looking at specific structure, about five miles in length and looking for any vehicles that had stopped or any spots on the ground where it looks like there might be disturbed earth. We're basically using our sensors with the infra red to find any indication there may be some buried explosives or improvised explosive devices.
DN: So you're flying to make noise, literally?
Brill: Absolutely. We're up about 10,000 feet above the ground. At that range the F-16 is about impossible to see, but you can very clearly hear it. Its a comfort blanket on the ground to hear that noise; but also for the bad guys on the ground, if they hear it, if they do anything like shoot a rocket or a mortar or small arms, we can get our sensors on that position in a matter of minutes and put a 500-pound bomb right on top of them. It's been very effective for the last couple of months. When it hasn't worked the results have been predictable. We've been hit pretty hard.
DN: What has driven you to stay on top of the flying-hours record for so many years?
Brill: The thing that's kept me going, and I've used this term before and I've used it fairly regularly, is just the passion for the flying side of it. Flying is to me, it's that challenge of trying every day, trying to approach perfection. I don't think there's any such thing as a perfect sortie because there are so many tasks involved. But no matter how well you do today, I'm going to try it tomorrow and get better at it; and just part of that was, it's not like I've been doing the same thing for 6,000 hours. The flying we're doing today is radically different from what it was four years ago. We've got brand new ordnance, different technology in the plane, which all lends itself to different missions and different ways to do that mission. So it's a constant challenge to keep up with the technology as it evolves so rapidly -- that coupled with my passion for the flying. I guess the job we do here is called a "beautiful contrast." You've got that incredible force, the might and power of the F-16, but to really do it correctly it's an art of agility and finesse.
We execute as a team and yet it's our individual performance that makes or breaks you. It's a contrasting and very radically different things that all blend together that energizes me. That's why I keep doing it. It's all I've ever wanted to do and it continues to be so.
We're all cut from different cloth. There's other people with different ambitions. There might be one making more money or flying airlines and being able to see the world and travel around and do that, or something where it's more a 9-to-5 job and they spend the evenings with their families. Everybody's different, and probably I'm, jokingly, I say I'm pretty much a strange kind of guy. My wife will agree with that, anyway. But you know, for me, getting the 6,000 hours, even today, there's guys shaking my hand saying "I don't know how you could do it" or "I don't know how you have done it," but for me there isn't anything I'd rather have done.
DN: In a fighter, do you feel like you're part of the machine?
Brill: Yeah, probably that's a good way to put it. I've used the expression before: "It's kind of like a roller coaster you can steer." I feel like the airplane is an extension of my body, and if I'm flying and I'm not flying in formation, I'll roll upside down just for the fun of it. Or I'll do a slow roll, or if I gotta turn and go back the direction I started from, instead of doing a right- hand turn or a left-hand turn I'll go inverted and do a half loop. To me that's the fun part of it. That's the fun stuff that keeps me charged up about it.
