Hey, it's me Destin
welcome back to Smarter Every Day.
I'm currently sitting in an airport
with my oldest son and we're on our way to Idaho.
Destin: Where does superman get his Superpowers?
Son: Krypton
Destin: The planet Krypton.
What about Batman? How did he get his superpowers?
Son: He learnt (learned) his.
Destin: Do you think people can learn superpowers?
Son: Yes sir.
Destin: Yea, me too.
Now, here's the deal; today's Smarter Every Day is in collaboration with
Bill and Melinda Gates, who every year write a letter
about how to make the world a better place
This year the letter is about "Superpowers for good"
If you could have a superpower for good, what would it be?
If you've watched smarter Every Day for any length of time,
you'd know that my superpower to be flight
but not like Superman- I would want to become a pilot.
I'm actively working on it actually.
When I was younger I read this book, and it's called
Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot and in the book
I met a guy named Nate Saint. This was the first time
I realised (realized) you could use your technical abilities to
help other people.
When ever there's a natural disaster like a Tsunami or an Earthquake,
often governments will send aid to these really tiny nations
who don't have the infrastructure to get it out to the
isolated people that need it.
That's where Superheroes come in, these guys
fly the aid up into the bush and give it to the people who need it.
So today on Smarter Every Day, I want to go to the organisation (organization)
that Nate worker for, it's called the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF)
and learn how these guys train to become real life superheroes
Okay, here we are, we are here at MAF headquarters
at Nampa, Idaho and this is Aaron.
He let me stay at his house last night.
and we're going to meet Brian, right?
Aaron: Brian... yep!
Destin: Alright, cool.
Destin: Are you Brian? I am Destin.
Brian: Nice to meet you.
Destin: Nice to meet you, how are you doing?
Meet Brian Shepson, Chief Training pilot for the MAF
I figured out pretty quickly that Brian is an extremely humble man
despite the fact that he spent over a decade flying in the jungles of Equador
which makes him somewhat of a legend.
Now he travels all over the world teaching the next generation
of pilots and mechanics who they can fly safely in crazy conditions.
Destin: So you basically train Superheroes, right?
Brian: Well, pretty much every day by your definition, yes!
Destin: *laughing*
Brian: We go to places that are hard to get.
If roads come in or other transportation systems come in,
We leave, we go another part of the world that is hard
to get to.
This airplane is a good combination
between being able to carry and being able to get
in and out of a short airstrip.
We have a heavy duty gear
the tire is a bigger size, we have gravel guards
to keep rocks and things from hitting the tail.
We have a rubber abrasion boot on the tail
to deflect rocks.
Tip extenders on the wings.
A fuel tank for extra range if we need it
Destin: A fuel tank in the tip, here?
Brain: Yes, an extra 15 gallons (57 Litres) on a side.
This cuff here, it adds a little bit more areodynamic
grip at a slower and higher angles of attack.
We have a mirror over here so that we can see if we have any
smoke, fire or oil
We have a cargo pod underneath.
We can put cargo in the aircraft without having to tie it down
Here we can just open the door and slide in stuff
Pigs, chickens and things that need
Destin: You are not exaggerating, you ship life stock.
Brain: Oh yeah, we carry anything.
Crocodile, snakes, you name it.
If it needs to be transported, we can transport it.
Destin: Brian agreed to take me up into the mountains
to teach me a little bit about flying in rough terrain.
We strapped in and headed out to the wilderness
of central Idaho where the first thing he wanted to teach me
was how to fly through a valley if you are forced to fly
below the mountain tops.
Brian: The untrained pilot in terrain would fly right through the middle of that pass.
The trained pilot knows "I need to be able to turn outta here".
Destin: Yeah, because if he got through the middle and you take a turn left or right...
Brian: he has have of the valley to work with.
So what we do is, we work with the whole valley
Then we have the whole valley to turn with
Destin: How do you do that?
Brian: We move over to one side, or the other
Let's go ahead and move over to the right side here
And so the whole idea is - you see how much room I have over there to turn around in?
Destin: That's your out
Brian: That's my out, but I have to be able to turn to get there
Brian: Nothing out there, clear. Let's go ahead and turn
Just add about 4" of manifold pressure.
Destin: You're pulling back to maintain altitude
Brian: 45° of bank, yep.
Brian: Finish the turn. Destin: You didn't even use a third of it.
Destin: Think about what Brian is saying here
if you lose an engine, you're gonna start to descend
Even though it feels more dangerous because you're so close
hugging the mountains is your clearest bet for survival
Destin: How many people would you say that you have saved over the years
from things like disease or your medical extractions, and things like that?
Brian: Oh my goodness, I don't even know if I can hazard a guess
We actually
would do teams that would go in and administer vaccinations for kids
Almost all of the kids
in the - in the jungles of Ecuador, where I flew
They receive their vaccinations because
we flew the doctors there
Destin: When you're transporting a vaccine, you have to worry about what's called Cold Chain Management
If a vaccine warms up it loses it's potency
so even if the medicine is in country, you can't get it to the people who need it in time
if you have to hike for days across rough terrain and through water
This is why airplanes are like having a superpower
You can get the vaccine to people who need it in minutes instead of days
Brian: There was a meningitis outbreak in a - in a - in a - valley that was completely
isolated because of snow on the roads. Couldn't get to it
for like 4 months out of the year
And the nurse in the village called
and we were able to package up 300 - uhh...- viles of the treatments - the serum
fly up there
and drop those out of the airplane
and only one of the little viles broke out of 300
I think they did a good job of packaging those
Destin: That's amazing, it's like the egg drop competition in school only
with vaccines that are gonna save somebody's life. Brian: That's right.
Brian: Only Life and death, that's right
I can tell you from experience that the hardest part of flying is making a good landing.
So I asked Brian to show me an example of the airstrips that jungle pilots might have to land on
These strips are often cut into the jungle with machetes, so they're very short
and very narrow
The craziest thing about these runways is that you often have to commit
either they're so short that you have one chance to take off
or there's a mountain in the way and you can't do a go round if you miss the approach
Once you commit, you either have to do it right or you crash
This is the width of the Atlanta runway
and this is the width of the dirt runway that Brian's about to land on.
I looked it up. It's one tenth as long and oh by the way
just to make it interesting it's pointing uphill with a huge bump right in the middle
This means that instead of gently gliding down to the ground
we have to pull up at exactly the right second and start flying uphill
or we're gunna smash and pancake into the dirt
The geometry says that the hill rises faster than the plane can pull out so you're committed.
You either land or you don't.
Usually understanding the physics of whats about to go down
makes me calm, but in this case
it made me nervous
Brian: Little sinker, and we're committed.
Brian: .. Flair.
Brian: Just touch it. And. Good hard brakes.
Brian: Now we got stopped by the wind sock
Destin: You are a boss.
Brian: That just shows what slope can do for us
Destin: That's impressive. Brian: And dirt
you can brake as hard as you want on dirt, you're not going to hurt anything
on asphalt you'll slide and flatten the tires.
Destin: There's no threat of tipping over.
It's skills like making these landing every single day
which helps the MAF get help exactly where it's needed
The main thing I learned though, wasn't about the pilots
it's that people who learn these skills
can use them to save people in a desperate situation.
and basically become superheroes.
Technicians build the planes
IT Professionals, Radio Operators,
logisticians, engineers, medical professionals.
Every technical skill
becomes a super power if you choose to use it not to build yourself up
but to help others in their time of need
Alright that's what my superpower would be, a big thanks to MAF for helping me learn a
little bit about how they become super heroes anyway if you would like to talk
about your super power for good
I'll leave a link in the video description is the first link, go read the gates letter
understand what the superpower for good is all about. Use the hashtag and tell
people what your superpower for good would be.
Anyway I'm destin you're getting smarter every day, have a good one
Brian: for snake bites and venoms, we'd fly live snakes up to a serpentarium
where they could do the milking and make a venom that would work particularly for our area.
Destin: You would fly snakes in the plane with you.
Brian: snakes on a plane
son: Wait, there's a planet really named Kypton?
Destin: No it's not