Is that a- would that be a bad day
if something tapped something else, or would it be alright?
Would it be a bad day if you hit another plane?
Yeah, it would. That’d be a bad day if I come within a half
mile of another plane.
Hi, everyone. Mike Sievert here.
Thanks for joining me for another episode of Sidekicks Conversations.
We're coming to you
from the Sidekicks pub here at T-Mobile's Bellevue headquarters.
It's Seafair here in Seattle.
And that means one thing.
The Blue Angels are in town.
So today, I am so excited to be joined by U.S.
Navy Lieutenant Christopher Kapuschansky, decorated
naval aviator and member of the Blue Angels, the U.S.
Navy's world famous flight demonstration squadron.
Chris joined the Blue Angels in 2021 amidst
an obviously very successful career as a naval aviator.
And after graduating from the U.S.
Naval Academy, back in 2012.
T-Mobile has a long history
of admiring and supporting military personnel and their families
from special pricing for service members through our widely adopted Magenta
Military Plan to community programs, to employment opportunities.
In fact,
based on the successful careers of former military members here at T-Mobile,
we're in the middle of a multi-year program to hire
10,000 veterans and their spouses.
I am so excited to have Chris and some of his colleagues here
at T-Mobile's headquarters. So welcome, Chris.
Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it.
I heard it's your first time in Seattle.
It sure is.
What do you think so far?
It's gorgeous.
Flying here. It was remarkable.
You know, I mean, seeing Mt. Rainier over there is just amazing.
And you guys start your practices tomorrow.
But I know you've looked at the route.
What do you think of the route here in Seattle and the setup?
It looks like a remarkable show site.
You know, you’re just surrounded by,
all the land in the bay and just right over water
makes it even cooler because then, you know,
you get to take things a little bit lower and make it seem a lot cooler.
I don't know what it is.
I know everywhere
you go, the visits of the Blue Angels are special to those communities.
But there's something about the Seattle community.
As I said in my remarks, you know, it's special here.
This week means the Blue Angels.
It means a lot of things, but thousands and thousands of people
watching you work, it must be a pretty neat feeling.
It's very humbling everywhere you go because, you know, we travel
all over the place.
We get to see
every part of America, places that I've never been, like Seattle.
And it's just
cool to see the life of each individual city and community that we go
to and just get to kind of reach out and you know, kind of be a part of that.
Tell us about your story.
How did you get into all this? I mean, what made you interested in the Navy?
What made you interested in aviation?
So when I was a kid, my dad was in the Navy.
He just recently retired,
but he brought me to an air show and we were in Newport, Rhode Island.
And, you know, I got to see the Blue Angels for the very first time.
And I thought that was the coolest thing in the world, but all I knew was ships.
So when I found out about, you know, aviation, I thought it was really neat. And
from there,
my dad said, well, let me show you a little bit more.
And he brought me to an Army-Navy game in Philadelphia.
And I said, I want to do that. I want to go to the Naval Academy.
So he was indoctrinating you the entire time?
He kind of showed me.
He kind of gave me the options.
You know,
he - believe it or not, after - during high school
when I started this application process to go to the academy, he's like, you know,
do you really want to go there? Do you really want to go there?
Or do you want to pursue a different, different way you want to do RTC
or maybe go to OCS, and kinda explore life through college.
And I was - I was set.
I was set in my ways -
Not just on Navy, but on aviation
by that point?
Just going to the academy and trying to do naval aviation. And
it wasn't the easiest route.
You know, it wasn't completely easy for me.
I wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
But I worked at it.
I got a aviation -
But I’ve heard they don’t make it easy on anybody.
Somehow I got an aviation slot and I end up going down to flight school.
Then I went to fly Super Hornets out of Virginia Beach for about six years
and then went back as an instructor, and -
Did you picture
that you might wind up as a Blue Angel when you entered Naval Aviation?
Because obviously it's a very small number of people
that wind up doing that kind of work.
You know, I always thought it would be cool to do.
I never actually saw myself being here.
I was lucky enough and fortunate enough to,
you know, find my way into this spot.
Now I am sort of an expert on
naval aviation because I watched both Top Gun movies.
Right, yeah. I'm just getting into this.
So I'm just going to throw that out there.
And because of my expertise, I know that everybody's got a callsign.
Oh, here we go.
And I know your callsign, so tell us your callsign.
But also we need to know your callsign’s origin story.
So my callsign is Cheese.
It's a shortened version of cup of cheese.
And I wish it was a super funny story, but it's really not.
I showed up to my first squadron on deployment
at the Jolly Rogers, we were on deployment on the Truman in 2016 and there
was this guy from the boonies of West Virginia and his callsign was Tickled
and him and this other guy Humpty were like, hey, who are we getting?
Oh, we’re getting this guy, his last name’s Kapuschansky.
And a couple of my friends were in the squadron.
They knew me. He said - what's his name?
Kapu-
Kapuschansky. Kapa-
Kapa, Kuppa-
Cup of cheese? And no kidding before I even walked through the door.
That's it.
It stuck.
Your future was sealed.
It stuck.
What is it about flying?
I mean, most of our viewers know that I'm a pilot.
When you are inches from another aircraft,
you're not just relying on your competence up there.
You're relying on everyone else's confidence.
And that takes a level of trust, that takes a level of team.
How do you achieve
that as a team in any squadron, but in particular in the Blue Angels?
So, yeah, trust is huge.
We base everything we do on trust and we start from ground zero.
You know, once we - once we get a new team,
about 50% of the flight suits, you know, all the officers rotate out every year.
So you think about that, that's - that's quite a bit.
So that's a lot of trust you got to rebuild.
So what we do is we - we kind of isolate ourselves for about ten weeks and
Every time there's a changeover?
Every year.
Every year. We build that trust.
You know, we start off relatively far away in regards to
what we're doing now and then we slowly bring it in based on that trust factor,
you know, so everything's kind of based on a cadence as well as, you know,
what's kind of the feel of the aircraft and what everybody else is also doing.
So when you look at different maneuvers, so from Diamond
two of our biggest ones that we we talk about, is the Diamond 360,
which is the diamond formation really, really close
where you have Scott, who's number three on the left wing.
He's actually tucked up kind of based off of parallax, right?
Little cheat code here. I know you’re going to ask me about secrets later, but -
The cheat code is - it's all based on parallax.
So where you're looking at us, Scott is actually tucked
not just underneath his wingtip, but no kidding,
underneath the Y.
Where it says U.S. Navy underneath boss’
wingtip, which is probably like, you know, maybe like actually past you.
So he's really tucked under there.
And Frank, our number four, he's essentially tucked up in that same spot under me.
And if anybody has any movement, the bow wave from that aircraft -
And you can't see him
any more at that point? Right.
No, I am looking off of just one little letter on boss,
and I'm just trying not to move whatsoever.
So nobody's trying to move.
Here at T-Mobile,
I mentioned in my upfront remarks, you know,
we're in the middle of hiring 10,000 veterans and their spouses,
and we're doing it because our experience is that veterans are so successful.
Why do you suppose that is?
Why, you know, what is it about a career in the Navy in particular,
or in the military in general that prepares people so well
for success if they decide to do something else later?
Well, I think, I mean -
for me, I think it's, you know,
when people rely on you,
you don't want to let them down, you know, so you have that - you have that going in
gameplan of like, I want to do the best I can because I don't want
to be that little link in the chain that's going to break something.
If you surround yourself with people who are successful,
you're going to want to be successful, right?
Or if you're in a group of people
who maybe aren't and then you show them that little spark,
they can then start running with it.
What is it people don't know? What are the secrets?
Tell me one of the secrets.
Break some news here on Sidekicks Conversations, what do people not know about
life as a Blue Angel or about what goes on behind the scenes?
I'll give you a few things that people ask us a lot.
Do we fly our own jets to wherever we're going? The answer is yes.
And do we have a B-team?
The answer is no.
We all, there's only - there's seven pilots, one of which is the narrator, six of us.
And we all fly jets to where we're going to go.
We do the demonstration.
And if, let’s say, somebody can’t do it for that day, nobody fills in.
You just - it's just five.
You guys bump into each other in the air, right? Once in a while?
Wing - wing bumps in?
What happens when that -
We don’t.
You just don’t?
No.
Incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah no, we, we have-
Is that a -
would that be a bad day if something taps something else or would it be alright?
Would it be a bad day if you hit another plane?
Yeah, it would.
That’d be a bad day if I come within a half mile of another plane.
That's what's so interesting.
It's the fear of what you can't see, right?
And here we have Lake Washington, so you can come nice and low and can't
wait to see the show this weekend.
Oh, it’ll be fun, yeah.
We have a tradition here at T-Mobile of Challenge Coins,
would it be OK if I present you with one?
Absolutely.
Alright.
Well, Lieutenant, on
behalf of the employees and the management and the shareholders of T-Mobile,
thank you for your service to our grateful nation.
And thanks for making time for us this week, on Seafair week.
Thank you so much for this.
Appreciate it, Chris.
That was awesome.
Cheers.
And that is Sidekicks Conversations for today.
I'm glad you've joined us and we'll see you next time, everybody.
Cheers.