Fighter Pilot with Air to Air Drone Shootdown | Homeless to the Cockpit | Distinguished Flying Cross | Ryan “Stinger” Fishel

Combat Story

Ryan Fugit

History

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2023

⏱️ 139 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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Today we hear a fascinating Combat Story from an active duty and currently serving F-15 Eagle fighter pilot, Ryan “Stinger” Fishel whose been involved in some of the most recent combat operations we’ve talked about on the show, including Syria and Iraq in Operation Inherent Resolve fighting ISIS.

Ryan has an absolutely remarkable story of how he found his way to the Air Force that included a Forest Gump-like path of hustling and fighting for any flight time he could get in the civilian world, to include incredibly risky and sketchy flights shuttling aircraft from the US to various countries in the Caribbean. At one point, Ryan was living out of his car and working in a grocery store deli before a moment on a beach changed his perspective on life.

I would ask you to please listen through Ryan’s story to get to the cockpit because it makes what follows (his exploits inside the aircraft) so much more special, to include an air to air shootdown in hostile skies of a drone, a stand-off and near international incident with a Russian fighter, and dropping danger close ordinance literally in neighboring buildings as friendlies were fighting ISIS.

I am so excited for you to hear one of our best combat stories with insight into the fighter pilot community I’d never heard of before from a long time Combat Story listener and active duty pilot and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Find Ryan Online:
- Ryan’s Linktree https://linktr.ee/combatstory
- Merch https://www.bonfire.com/store/combats...
- Instagram @combatstory https://www.instagram.com/combatstory
- Facebook @combatstoryofficial https://fb.me/combatstoryofficial
- Send us messages at https://m.me/combatstoryofficial
- Learn more about Ryan www.combatstory.com/aboutus
- Intro Song: Sport Rock from Audio Jungle

Find Ryan Fishel Online:
- LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-fishel-a258591b9/

Show Notes:
00:00 - Intro
00:55 - Guest Introduction (Ryan Fishel)
02:15 - Interview Begins
02:22 - How Ryan met Ryan
04:22 - Taking advantage of Podcasts and Veteran stories
05:53 - Callsign Origin
07:20 - The role of a Flight Weapons System Officer
08:55 - The role of a Fighter Pilot
12:39 - Suprising people become a Fighter Pilot
14:21 - Determination to become a Fighter Pilot
15:41 - Training route
17:05 - Childhood
25:35 - Living out of the car after highschool
32:37 - Path into Aviation
43:29 - Selling airplanes
51:18 - Black Diamond Jet Team
56:42 - Path to the Airforce through OTS
59:09 - Trainings and tests that put Ryan ahead
01:01:36 - Advantage and disadvantages through intesne training
01:04:40 - 9/11
01:06:40 - F15 Jets
01:10:38 - Being the 'new guy from flight school'
01:17:18 - Sharing oral history
01:20:42 - The best roast jokes
01:23:21 - First combat mission
01:31:12 - Processing pulling the trigger and danger
01:39:56 - Crazy radios and the road to flying F35s
01:59:05 - Dealing with aftermath stress of combat
02:04:14 - How to deal with mortality
02:11:44 - TheMerge.co
02:12:43 - Sentimental item
02:13:58 - Would you follow the same route
02:15:03 - Envisioning the next 10-15 years
02:16:36 - Listener comments and shout outs

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	They were pinned down from a dish cut and the heavy machine gun and the dish cut was coming from a third story of a seven-story apartment building and they were pinned down until like this rock wall and it was just busting out the wall and I could see in the target pod.
0:15.0	I could see muzzle flashes and I could see it you know busting out the wall and the J attack and I could hear it in the background.
0:21.0	He said we need to get this thing you know taken care of.
0:24.0	Calling with heading expect clearance on final.
0:26.0	Yep you know dudes in 180 clear hot so we ended up dropping and then we blew that third story out within like maybe a minute and a half or two minutes of getting that nine line.
0:37.0	Welcome to combat story I'm Ryan fugit and I serve war zone tours as an army attack helicopter pilot and CIA officer over a 15 year career.
0:45.0	I'm fascinated by the experiences of the elite in combat.
0:48.0	On this show I interview some of the best to understand what combat felt like on their front lines.
0:53.0	This is combat story.
0:55.0	Today we hear a fascinating combat story from an active duty and currently serving F-15 Eagle fighter pilot.
1:01.0	Ryan Stinger Fischel who's been involved in some of the most recent combat operations we've talked about on the show including Syria and Iraq in operation inherent resolve fighting ISIS.
1:11.0	Ryan has an absolutely remarkable story of how he found his way to the Air Force that included a forest gump like pat of hustling and fighting for any flight time he could get in the civilian world to include incredibly risky and sketchy flights.
1:24.0	Showing aircraft from the U.S. to various countries in the Caribbean.
1:28.0	At one point Ryan was living out of his car and working in a grocery store deli before a moment on a beach changed his perspective on life entirely.
1:36.0	I would ask you to please listen through Ryan's story to get to the cockpit because it makes what follows his exploits inside the aircraft so much more special to include an air to air shoot down in hostile skies.
1:48.0	A standoff and near international incident with a Russian fighter and dropping danger close ordinance literally in neighboring buildings as friendly as we're fighting ISIS.
1:57.0	I'm so excited for you to hear one of our best combat stories with insight into the fighter pilot community I'd never heard of before from a long time combat story listener himself and active duty pilot and hope you enjoy this one as much as I did.
2:15.0	Ryan thanks for taking the time to share your story with us awesome to be here thanks.
2:20.0	I was I was hoping you could share how we came to to meet each other because it's very rare as you know to have somebody on the show who who's still in the middle of their service who's done their time down range but still has more to go.
2:37.0	So I just love for you to share just some context behind that.
2:41.0	Yeah sure.
2:43.0	So I'm a big fan of some military podcasts and moreover listen to people's individual stories.
	...

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