The Merge

Chris "Snooze" Kurek, Rob “Trip” Raymond, and Erik“EZ” Brine chat with Mike “Pako” Benitez on all things fighter pilot culture—toast, roast, and lore.

Better known as Dos Gringos, Snooze and Trip put out 4 albums of fighter pilot songs that are famous (and infamous) in squadrons around the world. EZ joined the duo to form Operation Encore in 2012, a non-profit that helps veterans get their music into the world.

We dig into a century of fighter pilot history and traditions, from the origins of Dos Gringos, the squadron culture, roll call, Jermiah Weed, the ribbing and roasting, and all the camaraderie associated with military aviation.

They recently brought all of that into their latest venture, Winglore Spirits, and are doing it in a unique way that brings you into the fold.

Links

• Sign up for the newsletter⁠!

• Support us on ⁠Patreon⁠!

• Winglore Spirits

• Winglore Spirits investing

• Dos Gringos YouTube channel

----

Follow us on...

• LinkedIn

• Instagram⁠

• ⁠X⁠

• ⁠Facebook⁠

• ⁠Website⁠

----

00:00

01:47 Dos Gringos

17:22 Operation Encore

24:03 AI music

27:27 The culture and bar origins

34:27 Jermiah Weed

38:13 Winglore Spirits

42:03 Bogey Dope

43:16 Nickel on the Grass

45:29 Winglore squadron

50:42 the Nellis Club

52:02 Dos Gringos concert?

54:45 outro

55:04 Carlos jumps in

56:23 I wish I had a gun like the A-10

Nooks co-founder and CEO Sean Blackman spills all thesecrets about what it takes to do classified business with the Pentagon.

Nooks is a venture-backed startup founded in 2021 to solve amassive pain point: access to classified offices and networks to perform sensitive national security work.

Nooks is attacking the problem in an innovative way called Classified-Infrastructure-as-a-Service (CIaaS), which is a subscription access to a nationwide network of classifiedworkspaces and IT.

If you are in the defense industry—or even thinking about it—and there is even a sliver of a chance you will touch classified work, this episode is everything you need to know.

Links

• Sign up for the newsletter⁠!

• Support us on ⁠Patreon⁠!

• Nooks website

• Nooks LinkedIn

----

Follow us on...

• LinkedIn

• Instagram⁠

• ⁠X⁠

• ⁠Facebook⁠

• ⁠Website⁠

----

00:00

00:46 intro

01:49 Nooks

02:52 origin story

09:49 name and logo

12:30 locations and spaces

13:30 location and the real value unlock

17:57 COVID

19:20 fractional labs

20:06 fundraising for a weird company

22:01 information disadvantage

23:33 myth of hiring security clearances

30:00 SCIF

34:09 mobile SCIF

39:23 touchpoints and impact

42:13 security in shared spaces

46:48 the real impact

47:36 magic wand - crystal ball

49:50 make the problem go away

secrets, top secret, military, technology, tech, defense, national security, air force, navy, army, marine corps, usmc

Red 6 CEO and co-founder Dan Robinson discusses augmented reality for pilots, the military metaverse, and the future of high-end training and tactics development.

Red 6 was founded in 2018 around a revolutionary approach to military flight training called ATARS—the Advanced Tactical Augmented Reality System—that creates virtual outdoor worlds to deliver threat-relevant,near-peer-level training scenarios.

It’s much more than an augmented reality helmet—it's rethinking the entire pilot training and readiness experience.

Links

• Sign up for the newsletter⁠!

• Support us on ⁠Patreon⁠!

• Red 6 homepage

• Red 6 LinkedIn

• Red 6 IG

• Red6CEO IG

----

Follow us on...

• LinkedIn

• Instagram⁠

• ⁠X⁠

• ⁠Facebook⁠

• ⁠Website⁠

----

00:00

00:42 intro

01:41 origin story

05:22 thesis of Red 6

06:17 co-founder meeting

10:43 lack of adversaries to train against

16:03 realism that gets missed

17:58 surface threats

21:03 progress and iteration

25:25 all of the technical challenges

27:20 suspension of disbelief

30:37 replacing helmet-mounted cueing

32:09 Enders Game

34:18 the Red 6 name

35:59 UK Royal Air Force

38:33 manned + unmanned

45:08 validating tactics and training

51:34 quality vs quantity training

54:30 the technology is coming

55:21 flying

56:43 the chief morale officer

Mike sits down with Steve “Wingie” Wingfield to discuss the Joint Direct Attack Munition, aka the JDAM—the world’s first operational GPS-aided bomb.

Wingie played a big role in the Air Force, doing weaponsflight testing and requirements writing, then went on to have another career at Boeing working on JDAM and other weapons.

He’s one of the few people who got to see the entire storyarc, from the pain points in Desert Storm that started the whole thing, to other evolutions like Laser JDAM and extended range JDAM, and how those programscame to be.

If you want a rare inside look at how one of the most successful acquisition programs in the past 30 years happened, this episode is for you.

Links

• Sign up for the newsletter⁠!

• Support us on ⁠Patreon⁠!

----

Follow us on...

• LinkedIn

• Instagram⁠

• ⁠X⁠

• ⁠Facebook⁠

• ⁠Website⁠

----

00:00

01:02 intro

05:43 JDAM name origin

06:56 accuracy spec origin

10:43 Desert Storm McPeak Memo

11:16 GAM before JDAM

12:29 Kosovo combat debut

14:39 40k for 40k competition

17:44 JDAM adoption

22:50 production feast & famine

25:19 9/11 demand signal

26:33 surging with standards

28:43 Iraqi Freedom GPS jamming

29:53 Laser JDAM origins

33:38 the impact

36:01 hitting moving targets

37:54 106 mph!

39:39 MOP

41:33 JDAM-ER

41:47 Ukraine

42:53 integration and modularity

43:41 aerial mining

46:22 outro

#military #airforce #navy #aviation #tech #technology #JDAM #boeing #GPS #defense #desert storm #iraq #syria #afghanistan #miltech #engineering #USA #security

In this episode, Mike sits down with Dan Jablonsky, CEO ofUrsa Major, to discuss solid rocket motors and how Ursa Major is doing it differently.

Once dominated by just two suppliers, America’s SRM propulsion base has been stretched thin—leaving gaps exposed by today’s conflicts.

Dan explains how Ursa Major is tackling that challenge withmodular production, 3D printing, Highly Loaded Grain propellants, and advanced manufacturing using what they’ve learned from their liquid motor product lines.

We also talk about the big picture: hypersonics, cruisemissiles, and upcoming programs with RTX (Raytheon), the U.S. Navy (SM-2, SM-3, SM-6), the Army, and Stratolaunch.

If you want to understand why missile production is one of the biggest defense challenges of our time—and how new entrants like Ursa Major are building solutions—this episode is for you.

Links

• Sign up for the newsletter⁠!

• Support us on ⁠Patreon⁠!

• Ursa Major website

• Ursa Major LinkedIn

• Ursa Major Instagram

• Ursa Major X

----

Follow us on...

 • LinkedIn

• Instagram⁠

• ⁠X⁠

• ⁠Facebook⁠

• ⁠Website⁠

----

00:00

00:42 intro

01:04 Ursa Major

02:22 company name

03:48 getting into the SRM business

05:29 SRM industrial base

07:15 doing SRMs differently

09:14 SRM 101

12:07 Highly Loaded Grain

13:08 increasing missile range

15:34 rapid development

16:44 scale with safety

22:25 rapidly adapting SRMs to the threat

23:03 3D printing everything?

24:59 hypersonic motors

27:20 missiles in space

27:47 affordable mass

29:14 outro

Electronic warfare is a crucial element of armed conflict involving controlling and protecting the electromagnetic spectrum, which is vital for communication, navigation, and target identification.

EW also permits the disruption and denial of adversaries' use of the spectrum, hindering their ability to operate effectively.

Benjamin “Chuck” Angus, Director of Business Development in Naval Power at Raytheon, a business of RTX, joins us this week to discuss Raytheon's involvement in EW, specifically offensive electronic attack, with its NextGeneration Jammer—an advanced electronic attack system that denies, disrupts, and degrades enemy technology, including communication tools and air-defense systems.

In this episode, Mike and Jake catch up on defense techhappenings.

Links

• Sign up for the newsletter⁠!

• Support us on ⁠Patreon⁠!

• ⁠⁠Website⁠⁠

----

Follow us on...

 • LinkedIn

• Instagram⁠

• ⁠X⁠

• ⁠Facebook⁠

----

00:36 intro

03:31 defense tech investing

17:25 Anduril & Golden Dome

18:13 Golden Dome

25:51 frequency auctioning

28:12 Ukraine forcing a US reckoning

34:27 DIU criticism

42:24 the 4th offset?

46:39 Sun Tzu terrain

47:45 the torpedo

50:05 Ukraine drones and Israeli pagers

Tomorrow’s fight will be fast, complex, and contested. Victory won’t come from a single platform, weapon, or payload—it will depend on how well everything works together.

That’s where modeling and simulation (M&S) matters.

This week, Raytheon (an RTX company) joins us to discuss how they are leading the way with Rapid Campaign Analysis and Demonstration Environment (RCADE), a campaign-level M&S capability built to help decision-makers think beyond individual systems and enables them to see the entire operational ecosystem.

Don’t miss our newsletter!That's where we drop weekly knowledge bombs to help you make sense of defense!

In this episode, Mike sits down with Sheila Cummings,founder, president, and CEO of Cummings Aerospace.

Cummings Aero started in 2009 supporting the Huntsville,Alabama missile market, but recently decided to launch their own product—the Hellhound.

The Hellhound S3 is a man-portable, 3D-printe,d jet-powered kamikaze drone...and we have the FIRST-PUBLIC views of the actual drone—audio and video!

BREAKING NEWS: Sheila also announced a new variant—theHellhound S4. It’s tube-launched, bigger, better, and even faster than the S3!

If you're into military drones, cutting-edge tech, and thestart-up culture of finding ways to help the warfighter—this episode is for you.

Links

• Sign up for the newsletter⁠!

• Support us on ⁠Patreon⁠!

• Mike Benitez on LinkedIn

• Cummings Aerospace

• Sheila’s op-ed

----

Follow us on...

 • LinkedIn

• Instagram⁠

• ⁠X⁠

• ⁠Facebook⁠

• ⁠Website⁠

----

00:00 start

01:18 intro

01:56 origin story

05:03 high speed background

06:34 Hellhound origin story

10:54 introducing the Hellhound

11:27 3D-printed

12:31 finding an engine

13:34 See the Hellhound

21:20 naming the Hellhound

22:39 family of drones

24:38 supersonic variant

29:22 China & Industrialization

32:32 Industrial Mobilization Board

35:47 outro

Joe “Grip” Beissner, Director of Requirements and Capabilities for Radio Frequency Solutions at Raytheon, a business of RTX, joins us to discuss the cutting-edge AESA radars Raytheon delivers for our warfighters.