Inside The Cockpit With A Real TOPGUN Legend with Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart

Pop culture paints the Navy Fighter Weapons School as a playground for rebels in leather jackets. The reality was a stark, unforgiving academic institution where the only thing that mattered was the truth. We sat down with Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart, a veteran instructor, to pull back the curtain on the grueling standards that defined the real TOPGUN.

Surviving the Murder Board

You might think the flying was the hard part. Dishart reveals that the classroom was far more dangerous. Before an instructor could teach a single student, they had to survive the "murder board." This wasn't a simple presentation. It was a hours-long interrogation where the entire staff picked apart every word, diagram, and concept.

"It was the harshest audience you'll ever give a lecture to," Dishart explains. The students were already the best pilots in the fleet. To teach them, you had to be flawless. This pressure cooker created a culture where rank became irrelevant. If a junior officer had a better tactical idea than the commanding officer, the best idea won. This wasn't about disrespect; it was about survival.

Goods on Others

The secret weapon of TOPGUN wasn't the F-14 Tomcat; it was the debrief. Dishart details the "Goods on Others" philosophy. In a debrief, there was no place for feelings. Instructors and students had to look at the tapes and admit exactly where they failed. You didn't hide your mistakes; you broadcast them so the entire squadron could learn. This stripped away the Hollywood swagger and replaced it with cold, hard competence.

"We're Not Making a Documentary"

Dishart had a front-row seat to the cultural phenomenon of the 1986 movie. He admits the staff fought the producers on every technical inaccuracy, from the close-formation flying to the locker room drama. He recalls a producer telling them bluntly, "We're not making a documentary. We're making a movie. Picture this: Big screen, afterburners, rock music!"

While the tactical realism suffered, Dishart concedes the producers were right about the feeling. The film became the greatest recruiting tool in Naval history, flooding the service with motivated talent who wanted to be part of that world.

Breaking the Parochialism

One of Dishart’s most interesting insights involves the integration of the Air Force. For years, the branches operated in silos. TOPGUN helped break this down by bringing in Air Force exchange pilots like Mike Straight. They realized that fighting alone was a recipe for failure. By sharing tactics and "opening their hearts and minds," they turned a rivalry into a force multiplier.

The Delta Standard

When Dishart traded his G-suit for an airline uniform, the mission changed, but the mindset didn't. For 15 years at Delta Airlines, he applied the same rigor to passenger safety that he applied to dogfighting. As a line check airman, he taught civilian pilots that professionalism means inviting criticism. Whether you are at Mach 2 or cruising at 35,000 feet, you uphold the honor of the regiment by never assuming you are good enough.

Transcript

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

I walked in there like, "They're going to figure out today that I have no business being here." These guys are all high-speed alpha males raging through that place at 120 percent all the time.

Sandy Winnefeld:

When the first movie Top Gun was released in May of 1986, the world was exposed to the inner workings of the Navy Fighter Weapons School, which was founded during the Vietnam War.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

The kill ratio of Navy pilots was unacceptable. It started because we were not doing very well there, and they brought back some guys who had learned some hard lessons that were experienced in the airplanes. "Let's do some sort of lessons learned. Let's see if we can get these guys on the step." That was the initial push to initiate the TOPGUN school.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Many people claim to be TOPGUN pilots, but you're really only a TOPGUN pilot if you've graduated from the school, even though others who did not graduate from the demanding curriculum still call themselves TOPGUN pilots.

Sandy Winnefeld:

And being back as an instructor is a real privilege.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

The harshest audience, the hardest audience, the toughest debrief you will ever be in. It was the hardest audience you'll ever give a lecture to. It's the most grinding. They expect you to be that good because the students and the program require you to be that good.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

And our guest today is Greg "Hollywood" Dishart, a former TOPGUN instructor who then left the Navy and became a pilot for Delta Air Lines and a member of their flight standards department.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Stay tuned for a fun discussion about what it's really like to be an instructor at TOPGUN in the mid-1980s.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

One of the great disappointments of the first movie was that so much of what we were about wasn't accurately portrayed because it was all about the trophy and backbiting and the competition between students. We taught those guys to be like us, to be objective, to be professional, to work together. Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson are in the hallway, and we're just blasting them about the tactical, technical inaccuracies of some of the crap that we've been asked to do. And he goes, "Guys, we're not making a documentary. We're making a movie. Picture this: big screen, afterburners, rock music, hot chicks. You're all going to get lucky." And we all went, "We can work with that."

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

But first, many thanks to our sponsor for this episode, Culligan. Culligan's drinking water systems deliver the superior filtration and refreshing hydration you need to fuel your high-performance lifestyle. Culligan, water you love.

Sandy Winnefeld:

We caught up with Hollywood at home on the East Coast. So, Hollywood Dishart, good to see you again, my friend. And it's really, really a treat to have you on The Adrenaline Zone.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Thanks.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

We just want to jump right in, and we usually like to start with asking our guests how they got into their particular profession in the first place. So you joined the Navy and became a Navy fighter pilot. So what led you to the Navy and flying, and what did you have to go through to become a fighter pilot?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

My father, who was not a pilot until his third son got his wings, he was a big aviation enthusiast. He was an enlisted Marine, and at the time my brothers, my two older brothers had been born, he was still active duty down at Cherry Point. I think I claim that I was conceived in Cherry Point, but I was born north of the Mason-Dixon Line, so I feel your pain no matter which side of the line you're on.

But we grew up, you know, my dad was... and there were squadrons there, but he wasn't attached to a squadron. But we grew up making model airplanes, and you know, we'd go around—remember, you'd go out and fly airplanes on a little wire and it would go around in circles until you either got dizzy, fell over, or the thing crashed? We'd go out to Allegheny County Airport, watch airplanes take off and land, and went to air shows.

So when I was eight years old—I think this is how I recall it, although my brother Jeff, my younger brother Jeff, would, if he was still with us, would claim that it was his idea—but I recall being eight years old, seeing the Blue Angels fly, and I went, "I want to do that."

But I was actually to follow my oldest brother, Erb, who was an Air Force ROTC guy, class of '74 out of West Virginia, went to flight school. My brother Danny, who was a year ahead of me, went through the Marine Corps PLC program. And at the same time, I had applied for—you know, went through the student union, ran into Navy recruiters, and at the time they had the AVROC program which was down in Pensacola, which is basically AOCS split by two summers. As I always tell my son, who was a Naval Academy guy, I said I wasn't smart enough, tall enough, or handsome enough to go to the Naval Academy. I don't think I could spell Naval Academy. So I went through the Richard Gere School for Officers and Gentlemen and ended up getting my commission down at Pensacola.

So, yeah, that's how I ended up in the Navy. And I wanted to be in the Navy because I saw the Blue Angels fly, and I thought, "Those guys seem like they know what they're doing. That's a pretty cool job." And when I went in, my intention was to—people said, "Well, what do you want to do with that?" And I thought, "I'd like to be a squadron CO someday." And then beyond that, whatever happens, happens. But that's a story for another question. But anyway, so that's how I ended up going in the Navy.

Sandy Winnefeld:

This is kind of about you and your adventures and the risks and that kind of thing, but it really wouldn't be fair to do this without giving you a chance to talk about the family business a little bit more. I mean, you have an enormous number of relatives who have flown in the military. Walk us through some of that.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Well, certainly, I mean, the immediate family is pretty easy. My oldest brother was Air Force: F-4s, F-16s, had a squadron, retired out of Shaw after 22 and a half years, went on to fly for United. My brother Danny was an A-6 guy. He and I went through Kingsville together. Actually, he flew up from Kingsville to swear me in and gave me my commission at Pensacola in November of '77. And then I went to VT-6 flying a T-28 as he did, and then followed him down to Kingsville.

While he was still in the T-2 squadron, I joined there. And he had carved a pretty good path for me. I mean, it was like I was hoping I could measure up because he lit it on fire. And so the instructors were kind of looking for me, which was nice. I guess that was a blessing and a curse. And then while he was finishing TacAir, if you remember in the T-2, we shot the banner and did some things in that airplane, went to the boat. I was kind of just getting started. And then he walked down the hall to VT-21, and I followed him down there about, you know, a couple of months later. So he got his wings, and I think it was, I'm guessing, January '77. I got my wings in May '77. So we weren't too far apart. But that's because after he graduated from college, he went and did six months at the Basic School there at Quantico. And then so I was able to catch up with him a little bit.

And then my brother Jeff... Jeff was kind of an interesting cat. But he had originally went to Colorado on a Navy ROTC Marine Corps option scholarship. Did a year there, wanted to come back to West Virginia because we were all there going to school. And so he dropped his ROTC scholarship and said, "I'll get another one." And three months later he had an Air Force ROTC scholarship. I don't know how he did that. And so Jeff went on to fly, got his wings out of Vance, flew F-16s all over the place, and then ended up transitioning to the Guard, to a couple of different Guard units.

And yeah, so anyway, now one generation later, my oldest brother, Erb, who had a successful career in the Air Force, his son has just left the active duty Air Force, is a major, got picked up by the New Orleans F-15 unit. So he's down there as a full-time reservist or Guard guy, I guess we call it. And my brother Danny, who was the Marine, his son was Naval Academy class of '16, Marine Air F-35 driver. He was over in Iwakuni for four and a half years. He's now over in the desert doing some good work. And my son graduated in '21 out of the Naval Academy, and he is at the F-35 Charlie RAG in Lemoore. So my nephew Justin, who was active duty Army, is now in the reserves, but he's doing very well as well. So I'm very proud of him as well.

Sandy Winnefeld:

I didn't realize, Hollywood, that you and I took the same path. I was a VT-6 T-28 guy when you had the option of doing that or T-34s. And I looked at that little teeny-weeny little airplane, I said, "No, I want the T-28. I want to fly a World War II fighter." And did Kingsville as well.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

I had no idea what I was doing in that thing. And that started me on a path where I could honestly say that pretty much in every, every phase of my career I had no idea what I was doing, but I faked it. And my guardian angel is still in therapy for all those silly things I did. Great airplane, though.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

So, you know, when I joined NASA, we met a bunch—we were a mix of civilian and military—and the military guys, most of them, but not all of them, came in with call signs. So I have to ask, how did you get Hollywood as your call sign?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

It's a good story because it's a tip of the cap to a guy who became pretty famous in the F-14 community. He's no longer with us, but it's not a very interesting story. But I guess when I was in the RAG as an F-14 RAG student, the first guy I met was Dale "Snort" Snodgrass, who Jaws certainly can appreciate. So I go in and I think my hair was probably blonder, it was probably longer than it should have been. I'm sure I had my Ray-Bans on. And after a couple of mornings of that or weeks of that, Snort just said, "Hey, Hollywood, take a seat," or something like that.

And somehow, I guess maybe it was just the look, right? I mean, Jaws will tell you, you either do your name rhymes or ties with something, or you do something stupid, or somebody just goes—as in, you know, Animal House—"You are Flounder. You are Dog Dish," or whatever. So anyway, Hollywood stuck. And my philosophy has always been, if you can yell your call sign across a crowded room or say it in front of your mother, let's go with it. I mean, right? I mean, call signs are great.

Sandy Winnefeld:

So if you do something stupid and you act like you don't like it, it sticks. So you can't act like you don't like it. You gotta negotiate that very carefully.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Yeah. A couple of my colleagues wouldn't tell me how their call signs got created. So I'm like, "Okay."

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

The reference to the last name thing, we have got a couple of classics, but this one is my favorite. And I think he's in the same squadron as my nephew was over in Iwakuni, but his last name is—and I don't mean to throw him under the bus, but if he ever sees this, he'll like it—his last name is Fellhofer. I don't know what his first name is. And his call sign is Pants. What else could it possibly be? It's awesome.

Sandy Winnefeld:

We don't want to go down this road because it'll get ugly really fast.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Oh my God, that's hilarious.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Exactly. So anyway, to answer your question, Sandra, that's it. And it stuck. And so Snort was the first... in the F-14, your first hop, the first flight in the F-14, some unfortunate pilot had to get in the backseat with you. And Snort was in my backseat on my first flight, and I think I was on his wing on my whatever first flight I flew off of one of the instructors.

And then my brother ended up serving with him on the Nimitz. My brother Danny was the Marine A-6 guy at Cherry Point. He did an exchange tour with the CAG staff. He was a CAG LSO with Snort and worked with Bad Fred Lewis. So Danny got to know Dale quite a bit, too. So anyway, that's the uninteresting story of how I got my nickname.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

No, I like it.

Sandy Winnefeld:

So, Hollywood, you and I were both very fortunate. I still count myself... it's one of the luckiest things that ever happened to me to be TOPGUN instructors, truly. So why don't you tell us a little bit about why TOPGUN was started in the first place? What is that place all about?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Well, everybody's heard the story, right? But back in the Vietnam days, the kill ratio of Navy pilots was unacceptable. I think it again—often throughout this podcast for the next 10 minutes, as long as it lasts, I want to adjust... my disclaimer is I am very old, I'm confused, I've embellished stories for 40 years, so I'm sure that I'm inaccurate in a lot of ways. But I recall that it started because we were not doing very well there, and they brought back some guys who'd learned some hard lessons that were experienced in the airplanes.

Dan Pedersen was sort of... I believe was sort of like the tip of the spear and said, "Hey, gather a cadre of guys. Let's do some sort of lessons learned. Let's see if we can get these guys on the step." And that was the initial push to initiate the TOPGUN school. And I believe it was commissioned in 1971, but it started in 1969, and that's what it grew into. Now, back... it went from a very small group of guys to what we were at, which was still...

Sandy Winnefeld:

A trailer.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Yeah, in a trailer, to Hangar One. And it still was relatively a small group of guys. I think, Jaws, I think when you and I were there at any one time, because guys coming and going, IUT-ing and stepping out, we maybe had what, 16 to 18 at the most fully qualified pilots and four or five backseaters? And now it's gone on to be quite a large and impressive organization.

But as I mentioned at last year's TOPGUN reunion, 55th anniversary, I was talking to some of the young current staff members—very impressive group of people. And I was listening to some of the things they were talking about. I said, "You know, compared to what you guys are doing, back then we were rubbing sticks together to make fire and painting on cave walls." In a lot of ways, that's sort of true, but then they countered with a very respectful and nice answer and said, "Hey, if it wasn't for you guys doing that, we wouldn't be here." So we stand on the shoulders of giants, as we always say there.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

So how does one get assigned as a pilot to the staff at TOPGUN? Is that a normal career progression or...?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

It's really different now. And I haven't been read in, as they say, but I know back in the day when Jaws and I were there, at the completion of a class after graduation, we were required to... every member in the staff would read the critiques, and the students were required to write a critique on every academic event and every flight that we did. Once we said goodbye—congratulations, here's your patch—they flew off to the sunset and we locked ourselves in a room and whiteboarded everything. And literally, depending on what your lecture was, your area of expertise or what you did, we basically took on board the critiques, the valid ones certainly. And the idea was to continue to evolve the program, the class, the lectures that we gave.

And then at the end of that, we put all the students' names up on the board and we literally went around the room. And it was a very unkind, objective, harsh... a lot of guys are like, "That guy's an idiot," you know. And you literally would... And then out of maybe one class, you wouldn't get anybody's name that was left on the board. But we collected a list of potential future instructors.

The idea was back then—and it's different now—but back then you went through TOPGUN, and the idea was to go back... you've just gone through this graduate-level course. You were to go back to your squadron/air wing, and you were the tactics instructor or the weapons training officer, along with your backseater. And the idea was, at least by reputation and by your deeds, continue to keep your finger on the pulse as a staff. And then we would look for future draft choices, right?

So evidently, somehow made a mistake, left my name on the whiteboard. I went back to the VF-32, did a whole 'nother deployment, and then lo and behold, I was coming up for orders. I had actually requested and received verbal orders to do an exchange tour with the Air Force. I actually wanted to fly the F-15 because I just like giant fighters that you could see from 50 miles away. So I flew the F-14; I wanted to fly the F-15. And I had verbals to go to Holloman Air Force Base. And then I got word that I was selected to go to TOPGUN.

Sandy Winnefeld:

I would add on to that a little bit, Hollywood. You know, it was really rare for somebody to come through the class who we would label an idiot. These were really, for the most part, really good. So in order to make it on that list—and it was a secret list, nobody knew about it except us and the people who made assignments—so that's why Hollywood and I are still wondering to this day how we ever made it through.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Well, just to get back to my idiot comment, my point was we were pretty ruthless in that room. Yes, of course there were guys that came through that... there wasn't really any slackers. I'd say I was there for almost 44 months—I can't remember how many classes that was—but every once in a while we'd have somebody that came through that was casting an attitude as if he really had nothing to learn from us because he had it all figured out. And usually by the end of the first week, which was 1v1 week, hat in hand, they recognized that they should probably be quiet, sit down and listen. But yeah, to be selected just to go to the school was a major accomplishment. But my term "idiot" was just because we were bloody ruthless in that room.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Oh, absolutely. Pulling the curtain back a little bit further, one of the things that—you know, I was a pilot at Miramar when TOPGUN was based there. So I got to watch these guys all the time. And it's like, "Here are the guys in the blue suits and they're really good and they're really smart and they know every single thing that happened and why it happened on a particular flight that I would have with them." And there's a reason for that. And it has a lot to do with once you get to the staff as an instructor, what you go through just to be allowed to fly against the class or to teach a course to the class. So talk a little bit about that, Hollywood.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

It's a tough... when you show up there, I mean, I don't know what your experience was, but I mean, honestly, I walked in there like, "They're going to figure out today that I have no business being here." I mean, these guys were all high-speed alpha males raging through that place at 120 percent all the time. And I was thinking, "What am I doing here?"

And everything you do, whether it's your lecture prep, the research you have to do to take that on, to go through the IUT syllabus, two different airplanes... the harshest audience, the hardest audience, the toughest debrief you will ever be in were... and I don't mean that like... the whole idea was to polish the product, right? But it was the hardest audience you'll ever give a lecture to. It's the most grinding. And because they expect you to be that good, because the students and the program requires you to be that good.

It was challenging. It was very satisfying. When you finally got through your murder board, whether it was your first one or your second one or your third one, you gave your lecture and you gave your briefs and debriefs to staff members who had been down there. And that was... it was a grind. And you know, honestly, I used to say every day I walked in the place... I was there for a long time. I'd walk in like, "Okay, today's the day they figure out that I just can't keep up with these guys." So you always, always brought your A-game. You had to, because there were some impressive people there.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Yeah, you used the term "murder board." That term originated at TOPGUN. And a lot of our listeners have probably experienced that in one way, shape, or form when they're preparing a brief for an investment thing or something like that. But it was, you know, you give a one-hour lecture and the debrief would be five, six, seven hours. It was that brutal.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Yeah, they were brutal, thorough.

Sandy Winnefeld:

And you might not pass.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Oh, yeah, no, it was not unusual to basically go, "Okay, good try. Get back to work. Go polish that up," like in a big way. So it was quite a process.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

So talk a little bit about the culture then. It sounds like a highly competitive environment, a lot of brilliant people. Everyone's used to excelling at the top of their game. I mean, that's a little bit like the astronaut office. What kind of culture did that set up, and how would you describe it for the staff and maybe the students both?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

I think it made you... very seldom do you ever walk in there and take your pack off and go, "Today's going to be an easy day." And when we say competitive, it was competitive because we all held each other to that standard. But it was a brotherhood. There was a bond there. We're all rooting for each other. You know, to be able to sit in a brief, to be a part of someone else's brief, to step in and watch somebody else give a lecture that you murder-boarded, take part in a multi-plane exercise and come back and not only see the instructors brief, lead it, and debrief it, to see the students through the course of the class go through it was very satisfying.

I never felt... I always felt like everybody was in my corner. You had to prove yourself when you got there. I mean, there were some... and again, different personalities, right? Some guys were very welcoming and very nurturing to a certain extent. Other guys were very much like, "Hey, if I want to hear anything from you, I'll ask you. Otherwise, you know, just join up, shut up." And maybe that was a good cop, bad cop routine, but we had the perfect mix of confidence, swag...

I always hate to use the word "ego" because so many people accuse people in this line of work of having giant egos. And I would often offer that I think that an overabundance of confidence was required and often misinterpreted as ego. Sure, we had egos, and certainly you both can relate to this. If you're in that line of work or in the line of work that you were from, Sandra, if you don't think you're the best at what you do, you have no business being there.

But to walk in that place, on any given day, you'd go out and fight a 1v1 with Jaws or Carrot or any of the guys that we served with—Rats, certainly—some of those guys were great drivers. And you just went out there and on any given day, you found out that there are a lot of guys that are better than you, a lot of guys that aren't. But all of those guys were always striving to do the absolute best job they could do every day. And it didn't stop. It was a sweatshop.

I mean, I was there for, I don't know, like I said, a long time. And I don't know how much leave I took, but I know how much I gave up. I burned a lot of leave just letting it go away because we were so busy. We'd do a class and, hell, we'd do a week with the class. And all of a sudden we had, "Hey, Friday afternoon after the debrief, we need two guys to fly up to El Toro because we're doing a weekend det against the Marines up there." And we'd fly up there in the afternoon after we did a full day, do double cycles Saturday, give a couple of mini lectures, work Sunday, fly back, and go back to work Monday. That was kind of standard. We were on. We were on the whole time.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Of course, we acted like we didn't like it, but we actually did like it.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

But, yeah, I mean, right. Although I will say that there's a burnout factor to it. I mean, when I was leaving, Wigs was our CO at the time—God rest his soul—and I remember after his debriefing my fitness report, he goes, "Hey, Hollywood, do you have anything for me?" And I said, "Yes, Skipper. Don't ever let anyone stay here this long again because the brain damage is permanent."

Anyway, it was a great place to be. It was a great place to be. And I am thankful for every day I had there, really. And for the people who I met.

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I want to pull the curtain back just a little bit more because you know that I think the average person looks at TOPGUN and goes, "Oh, they're just teaching people to be great fighter pilots." But it was a lot more than that. And you alluded earlier to what we were really trying to do with the class, and that is to send them back so that they could teach their squadron mates to be as good as they could possibly be. Can you talk to our listeners a little bit about... and particularly I'm thinking of the debriefing process. What we're trying to get across to enable a student to be able to debrief a flight. There's a lot to that. You talk about ego, you talk about drawing on a whiteboard, three dimensions in two-dimensional space. Can you talk a little bit about that? That was really what we were after, I think more than anything, is getting behind the "why" behind the "what."

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

I mean, and it comes down to like the catchphrase we always said was "goods and others," right? I mean, first of all, to be able to develop the ability to perform in a very dynamic environment, but at the same time have—I don't want to say flawless recall, but to be able to accurately reconstruct. Certainly without a lot of the tools they have these days, we had to go back and reconstruct what had occurred, whether it was a 1v1 or a multi-plane exercise.

The whole idea was obviously to take a graduate-level course, you know, certainly compared to what the fleet guys were exposed to. To be able to not just teach them to be better pilots, right, to teach them to be more proficient in employing the weapon system, but teaching them to be able to do exactly that: to be able to go back and impart that information to bring everybody up. But at the same time, to develop the mentality where you could take someone out on an exercise or be involved in an exercise and then come back, and most importantly, through accurate recreation and recall, draw up the lessons learned, and then impart that to them.

So basically, you're making instructors. You're making more proficient pilots better instructors, but you're bringing everybody up. You're raising up the whole squadron or the whole air wing. And most importantly, it wasn't whether you won or lost. It wasn't whether you beat the other guy. It wasn't whether that you did or did not survive on the Tac range or on the mission. But you were able to come back and elevate your level of learning, understanding, and instructing to be able to draw people in.

And I always tell my son this when he's gone through flight school. I said, "Be humble, but don't have your hat in your hand. Be receptive to criticism, show up early, be professional," all of those things. And those were the things that we taught the students. And then the following month that they went back to their air wings and were able to do that, to be able to take a group of individuals, take them out there where all of that is involved—the ego—but to be able to sit down in the room and to remove all of the things that we have there that are sort of holding us back from being in "receive mode" and taking on, willingly taking on those lessons learned from somebody who, you know, may have just waxed me or may have just shown me that I'm deficient in some area and I need to get better.

So the whole idea was, the mission was: everybody needs to be better. Everybody needs to be as professional as they possibly can. This is valuable time, valuable equipment, and we do the most important job, and that is that we're all more combat-ready than we were yesterday. You know, a better version of yourself.

Sandy Winnefeld:

And we took great pains to keep the ego out of it, right? Instead of saying, "Why did you go in the vertical?" it was like, "Why did the F-18 go in the vertical?" I mean, is it down to the last nuance...

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

It wasn't just a function of third person, first person. It was... which is one of the reasons—not to get into the movie thing, but one of the great disappointments of the first movie was that so much of what we were about wasn't accurately portrayed because it was all about the Trophy and the backbiting and the competition between students. And quite frankly, when they showed up there, the very last thing we would have tolerated was that: the ego, the swagger, the glasses, the cowboy hats, the backbiting in the locker room, the "who's going to be the best pilot?"

I mean, we taught those guys to be like us, to be objective, to be professional, to work together. The whole idea was to take the class and through individual effort, sections, and then divisions, to make them work together as a team, to be receptive to others' leadership, to their guidance, to their briefing and debriefing, to make them fight against the adversaries.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Did you guys track how effective—you know, you were training these guys to do all this debriefing and develop this set of skills, and they were supposed to go back to their squadrons and sort of train them—did you track how effective that was over the years?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Well, I think the proof was in the pudding, certainly from the very early days of when the school began. But I think it was such a... at least I'm speaking for myself, but I think almost universally to get selected to go there was quite an honor. So the last thing you would do showing up there was to disappoint your commanding officer, to be basically shown the door because you weren't receptive.

I think the selection process was impressive enough just to go there. So I think the right individuals went through the school. They went back with that mission statement in hand, and at least peripherally or through feedback from our colleagues and XOs and COs and OpsOs from different squadrons on both coasts, we'd hear about the good work they did. We'd hear also from people who had an opportunity just to be exposed to the tactics instructors and the weapons instructors that we sent back to those squadrons and said, "Man, we've learned some good stuff from Hollywood, from Jaws, from Bio. These guys are back in the squadron and doing good work." And so, yeah, in a lot of ways, we did hear about it. We saw it come back to us, and then we also heard about it, too.

Sandy Winnefeld:

So, yeah, I just say I'd reinforce that because, you know, I stayed a lot longer than you did, Hollywood, and I got to...

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

I was asked to leave.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Yeah, right. I saw a progressive improvement, very steady, very positive over time. And by the time I left being a Strike Group Commander and I was watching these guys brief flights, it's like, wow, these guys...

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

It really took. Quite an evolution. Yeah, quite an evolution.

Sandy Winnefeld:

So one of the other things that we sort of did also was tactics development. And that wasn't specifically our charter, but we found ourselves doing it anyway. You know, not just how you fight a one-versus-one engagement against another airplane, but how you... when you and I were there was when the bad guys started getting the ability to basically shoot you in the face, right? And we had to respond. Can you talk a little bit about how we went about that and maybe some of how we benefited from the Air Force in that process?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

That was going to be my answer to your question. I don't want to go in the weeds about tactics. I mean, it obviously was an evolutionary process, right? The weapon systems are evolving, the tactics are evolving, the threat's evolving. So obviously you have to evolve. The thing that sticks out in my mind the most—and I'm not going to give Boa all the credit, I love that guy, but...

Sandy Winnefeld:

Air Force exchange guy?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Yeah. For the longest time—and it's historically speaking—I mean, very parochial. You know, the Air Force, quite a competition as you can imagine. Air Force, Marines, Navy, everybody does it the best. And there wasn't a lot of cross-pollination of ideas. I mean, look at where we're at now. But back then the idea came to the staff about the concept of introducing an Air Force pilot on the staff. Basically an exchange tour, so to speak.

I mean, we did a lot of work with the F-15 Weapons School up in Nellis. That was probably the first opportunity we had to sort of get together. We'd host them down there, they'd bring us up there in between classes. And there was a lot of opportunity to work with them, to fly against them, and to hear from those guys. But when we took Mike Strait on, he was the first Air Force exchange guy. He was a Weapons School graduate, F-15 Weapons School graduate. And it really opened the door. I think it really was the kickoff to what is... taking a lot of credit for saying this, but I really do believe that that was the initiation of combined forces.

We opened up our minds flying. And there was some pushback to it too because, you know, a lot of that, "Hey, what does he know? He's not a Navy guy, that's the gold wings, blah, blah, blah." But it really opened up the door and was like a starting point for sharing concepts, sharing tactics, force-multiplier concepts, and working together. Which is why the platforms today, the F-22 and the F-35 and the Super Hornet and the F-15EX that's coming online... it truly is one force. And I think it goes back to those days when we opened up our hearts and minds to being better. To putting our ego and our parochial viewpoints aside and embracing the intelligent experience and expertise that we were able to gain by doing that.

Sandy Winnefeld:

And you're right, you know, there was some resistance. "We don't need no stinking Air Force guy here." And the Air Force actually sent the perfect person down in Mike Strait. He had the best personality for that. And I would go... but, you know, I would say that nobody could touch us in a one-versus-one dogfight at TOPGUN, but nobody could touch them in a forward-quarter engagement. We learned so much from each other. It was really quite amazing.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

One more... I don't tell Boa's story real quick. And you remember this. And again, I'm old, I'm confused, I don't have a very good memory, so I'm making this stuff up. But when he joined, I think we had just finished a class just by happenstance. He checked aboard. His wife's name was Dolly, who was... she was... everybody's cool. Maybe cooler than Boa. But both a couple of little... like, they were short.

Sandy Winnefeld:

They're short.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Yeah, both of them were. Anyway, no offense, Boa. But they checked in. We graduated the class. Remember, we'd go down to Solana Beach or something, right? Get down if we could. Had bonfires going and Freddie Cleveland would bring the generators down. We had the blenders going. The guys would have their surfboards out.

Well, the sun sets, it's getting dark, but we're just getting started, you know? And of course then it starts like, "Where the hell is this guy? Where's Boa? This guy just joined. He's not even here at the party," right? So next thing you know, we're out and it's dark now. And we see this light out in the water. Everybody's like, "It's a fishing boat or something." All of a sudden you see a second light and like, "What the hell's going on?" Then the lights are getting closer and closer.

Well, he had gone down the beach—and I don't know how far down the beach he went with his wife—and they went in the water, they had wetsuits on. And they came up the beach and then they came in. And that's how he made his entrance at the party. And at that point we're like, "Okay, this guy's pretty cool."

Sandy Winnefeld:

Should have been an exchange tour with the SEALs instead.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

He's okay. Just a little bit on the tactics, since I'm not familiar with how this all worked. But if you guys were developing new tactics, you had to go test them, and I assume you did that flight test of them. So what kind of risk was involved in testing new tactics or new formations, or did the briefing cover it?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

It happened pretty organically and oftentimes it was evolution of threat combined with evolution of weapons, which required an evolution of weapons employment and tactics. So it wasn't like we sat down and just sort of like brainstormed, "Hey, let's try this." But the threat continued to evolve, our weapons systems continued to advance and evolve. And so therefore we had to do the same. And that's not to go down in the weeds with it, but I think that's really what it is.

I don't remember that we ever sat down and said, "Hey, let's have a committee, death by committee, and let's establish that." But really was... the threat continued to evolve. So of course we had to as well. But, you know, you got VX-4, the weapons testing squadron, and a lot of other agencies that were sort of providing us with the assets and the resources to continue to advance them. So that's basically how I remember. And we were really sort of at the operational level. I mean, we weren't certainly at the... we were more evaluating and you know, through the use of the Tac range and the telemetry provided with the weapons that were involved in that and those training devices, we were able to validate by that. Certainly in the Fallon range and certainly over Yuma, we were able to validate it through tactics.

Sandy Winnefeld:

And so Hollywood, we already talked a little bit about the movie, the first Top Gun movie, and some of the serial disappointments associated with what a summer movie has to dramatize, right?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Sure.

Sandy Winnefeld:

And that was the egos and all that kind of stuff, which really was not accurate, but it was kind of an interesting thing. And everybody in the squadron was involved in making the movie, but you were probably as much or more involved as anybody because you did a lot of the flying and everything. Can you talk a little bit about sort of how we helped with the script and what it was actually like to do the flying scenes and then anything memorable from that time?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Jaws and I talked about this yesterday... or was it yesterday? Yesterday before yesterday, briefly about that. And I said, you know, I think... my impression is that people have movie fatigue, but evidently not, because people want to talk about it. But it was... it was an interesting process.

I walked in the door March of '83, and it was already tentatively in the works. Right? I think Boomer Wilson, who was our skipper, basically said, "Hey, you know, this is happening." And that was a long... it was... obviously, it didn't come out until, what, April of '86?

But anyway, so they hired a writer, a contract writer named Jack Epps—really nice guy who came down. I'll tell this story because, like I said, I'm confused, I'm old and I don't have a good memory. But Jack came down, really nice guy, and met his wife, too. And his assignment from Paramount was, "Hey, hang around with these guys. Right? Soak up the ambiance." And so we did. We included him as best we could. We actually took him flying, got him a little backseat ride in the F-5F, and he hung around in any portion of the brief or debrief that was not classified. And certainly going to the club and walking through the halls. And so he supposedly did research and he went back to the Hollywood Hills. God rest his soul, I think Jack's gone. But he wrote the script and we got it. And my standard, probably unkind opinion was he went back to the Hollywood Hills and smoked a pile of ganja because I don't know what the hell he was doing there. But it was awful.

Sandy Winnefeld:

It was awful.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

But the good news was that we, I think part of the deal—again, Jaws, I'm old and I'm confused, but I recall that we had the opportunity to chop that thing.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Yep. And, by God, we did. I mean, sent it back to them. I mean, it was crazy. We weren't going to make the movie unless they changed it.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

And that went through several revisions because it sucked that bad. And then... so when they actually got something, I mean, you could say, okay, it's a turd, but we could polish it. It still wasn't great, but it was like, "Okay, this is what we're doing."

And then even going forward, there was a lot of fighting because of who we were. Just one aside. I mean, I remember we'd watch the dailies. We'd go out and fly an event, and then we'd watch the dailies with the rough cuts, the video, before we went out and flew the next day. And this is in the middle of while we're still very busy trying to run the Navy Fighter Weapons School. So we're doing a lot of this stuff early morning while there's academics going on, or late in the afternoon or on the weekends. And then in between classes we did a lot of the desert flying up in Fallon.

But we'd watch the dailies and it was awful. Basically it was... Tony Scott was the director, I believe. Is that right?

Sandy Winnefeld:

Yep, Tony.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

And he had no concept of how airplanes move through the sky. So he was running the cameras at different speeds and it was just awful. And then we'd have, as you can see in the movie, you got airplanes that are—not to shoot my watch off—but they're like literally like, like this, right? It's like, "I'm closing to guns." It's like, you know, "You're Blue Angel Number Four right now. You're not killing anybody but yourself." So there's a lot of that crap going on.

So in the hallway one day, Jerry Bruckheimer and Don... I'm going to clean this line up. But Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson are in the hallway and we're just blasting them about the tactical, technical inaccuracies of some of the crap that we've been asked to do. And he goes, "Guys, we're not making a documentary, we're making a movie. Picture this: big screen, afterburners, rock music, hot chicks, you're all going to get lucky." And we all went, "We can work with that." So there was a lot of compromise, right? So a lot of compromise. But even in the dialogue and, you know, "I feel the need for speed" and all that stuff... we had a lot of this stuff we had... we sent a couple guys up to Paramount to redo some of the in-air dialogue because it was so... Oh my gosh.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Well, and a lot of it is direct lifts also though, from the way... it'd be like, "I hate it when that happens." Or "do some pilot shit," you know, that was a direct lift from what we would actually say, right?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

So once they did the casting, we went over to the club—Jaws, I don't know if you were there or not—but they sat us in the club, was a quiet afternoon, they bought pitchers of beer and they just said, "Tell us stories. Tell us stuff that happened."

So, for example, the flat spin where Goose dies, right? We talked about the actual issue with the airplane. If the F-14 was in an inverted or in an upright flat spin, that due to the ejection sequence with the canopy coming off and the back seat coming out or front seat coming out because of the airflow around the airplane, that the canopy could be in the proximity of the back seat flight path. And that had happened. We lost guys to that exact sequence. Now, they didn't portray it... they attempted, they made an effort to portray that properly. Whereas in fact, they couldn't command eject and they needed to jettison the canopy, wait a couple of potatoes—in very non-technical terms—so that the back seat and the front seat could come out and clear the canopy. So they did that.

We talked about, you know, I was in the Gulf of Sidra on the Kennedy. We talked about intercepting Su-22s and MiG-23s. And I was telling them that, you know, that on an intercept, you know, we joined up on a couple Su-22s that were coming out to the ship and a guy named Byron Olson, call sign "Bam Bam" because he looked like Bam Bam from The Flintstones—he's a big, big, strong, handsome, Nordic dude. Anyway, Bammer was on my wing, Guido was... Pat Morganelli was in my backseat. And we literally went over top. Now, we didn't fly like this on him. And then kind of... but there's all that going on. And then Bammer was on the wingman's right side and the guy came up on guard and basically said, you know, "Gypsy 212." And then that's when Bammer gave him the Hawaiian good luck sign. So they're writing all this stuff down, right? All the stuff... all the irreverent, silly things that we'd say. And they were scribing everything down. So a lot of that got incorporated in the movie.

But all in all, to answer your question, it was... we're happy we did it. It was irritating, annoying. Some of the people were hard to deal with, not to mention names. But the most interesting people, I thought, were some of the behind the scenes, the special effects guys. Some of the technicians we met... we went up and they invited us up to Paramount to have a cast and crew screening. We all sat in the big theater in Paramount after we were kind of given a little tour and met some of the people that did special effects and all that stuff. And they were very proud of their product. It was an interesting group of people, but it was a... it was an experience, a big distraction, and it was tough at times.

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Sandy Winnefeld:

It was interesting meeting the actors, too. I think it was Mike Galpin and myself who took Tom Cruise and Tony Edwards to a bar because they were doing their research. And a lot of people think actors just show up on the set and do their thing. They actually deeply research the characters they're supposed to be playing. So we, you know, among other people, we were the people. And I had no idea who Tom Cruise was. It was this little guy in a ponytail, and I had never seen Risky Business or anything like that. All these girls are running up to, "Oh, you're Tom Cruise!" I'm like, "This guy's going to play us?" But he did a brilliant job. And since then, obviously, he's an amazing actor.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

I want to ask you about the second movie, but before, I have a quick question. As the first movie came out, that gave TOPGUN a huge amount of publicity. Did you have to do any kind of attitude adjustment or expectation adjustment in pilots who were coming through because they saw the movie and they wanted to be at TOPGUN and they had this distorted view of what it was all about?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

The guys that were coming, I think were still very much aware that the accurate expectations were right. And honestly, since then, not only through reserve time after I got out of TOPGUN, but even through my airline career, I met a lot of people, a lot of guys, a lot of men and women who said, "The reason I joined the Navy was because I saw that movie." The reason I went to flight school, the reason I went to the Naval Academy, the reason I went to the Air Force Academy... literally countless numbers of men and women, young men and women that are now either serving or continue to serve, I think are motivated by that movie. So at the very end of the day, in spite of all the stories and the grinding of gears and the disappointments or the less-than-satisfactory portrayal of TOPGUN in general, certainly in the first one, it was a wonderful recruiting tool and brought a lot of very talented, motivated, dedicated people into our line of work.

And at the end of the day, I think one of the things that we didn't talk about earlier, but it obviously is true, is that as a student going through there, as an instructor being there, and then after the day someone shows up that's motivated, professional, on time, receptive, humble, you become invested in their success because you see yourself in them and you know and you understand and you recognize that the reality is that they are the replacement. They are the evolution. They are the continuation of the bloodline. And so I think that's the one thing that the movie did. Both movies have done that. That has advanced that.

My standard line, when I got any grief from any Air Force guy would say, "Oh, Top Gun." I'd say, "Yeah, because Iron Eagle was so awesome." It's like, not only does anybody remember that movie? Iron Eagle? It's like, don't tell me that you didn't get lucky at the club because of Top Gun, but nobody ever got lucky at the club because of Iron Eagle. Nobody.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Of course, the attack guys would say, you know, "Attack guys make history while fighter guys are making movies." Yeah, okay, right.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

But they also benefited from our hard work. Right. So there you go.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

So, Hollywood, did they do better with the second movie?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Absolutely. Well, it's funny, you know, my son, who was in flight school at the time... I hadn't seen it. I'm the old man yelling off my lawn for my screening boards, you know. But I was like, "I'm not gonna see it," stuff like that. And then he called me and said, "Dad, you gotta see it. It's so awesome." I saw it and I was like, "You know, it's a movie." And again, if I sat back and dissected it, I'd say, "That's crazy. And that's not technically, tactically accurate."

But I gotta tell you what, I've watched it probably—and I don't want to sound goofy—but I've probably watched it 10 times. I love the humility that he showed, the character development of all of them, the tip of the cap to the original movie. In a lot of ways, there's definitely a connection and an honoring of the first movie. The fact that they advanced the technology of the scenes, the flying, what he required his fellow co-stars to do... I thought the casting was excellent. I thought Phoenix was probably the baddest. She was awesome in that movie. He did a great job. I thought the chemistry between Penny and Maverick was awesome compared to the first movie. I like the whole thing about it. And so I'm a big fan. As corny as that sounds, I'm a big fan. And I've watched it with Luke and I've watched it with my wife and my daughter. We watched it in the theater. I've taken friends, I've watched it on airplanes crossing the country because quite frankly, at the end of the day, there's nothing not to like about it. It was really well done.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

All right, I haven't seen it yet. I'll go see it.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

What?

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

I'm not a... just... we shouldn't put this on the podcast. But I'm not a Tom Cruise fan, so I haven't. But I will.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Well, I was...

Sandy Winnefeld:

I would say also that even though there are some cringe-worthy, technical and tactical questionable... there has to be in a movie. The thing I think they did so well in that movie was depicting what it's like to be in a cockpit under all that stress. You know, because you can see Tom Cruise's face doing this, pulling Gs in a canyon and having to watch your fuel and not run into the ground and worry about surface-to-air missile threats and, you know, navigation and timing. That was very realistic.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

I thought I would like to scream at the TV though, when I hear anyone—and I'm not going to say who—but anyone that said, "Oh yeah, he flew the airplanes." I said, "Actually you didn't. You were in the backseat doing, doing well, doing great." But anyway, so yeah, I'm a big fan.

And so, all right, Sandra, to answer... not to talk about Mr. Cruise much, but I will say that the one thing—and again, I haven't seen him since the day... but when he showed up at TOPGUN, literally as he had just been cast in this movie, and as Jaws referenced earlier, he showed up... he had just finished a movie called, I want to say it was Legend or something, but he had this long ponytail. He was some sort of wood sprite that was saving the unicorn from...

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Yeah, that was Legend.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Yeah, it was an awesome, awesome movie. But we saved his career at that point. That's what I'm going to say. But so anyway, he showed up. We're kind of like, "Really?" And then he and Tony Edwards were sent down to Paramount to sort of again, soak up the vibe, right? To walk the walk, to talk the talk and hang out with us. And he couldn't have been more cordial, more polite, more humble. And every time I saw him do an interview, whether it was Entertainment Tonight or whatever, you'd see him on TV and he talked about how he was proud just to be here and why he was doing it and talking about the school and the pilots and stuff like that.

So for whatever... wherever he went with that, I thought that he, unlike some of the other actors, I thought he was very respectful. He was doing his very best, I think, to present the Navy pilot as best he could. And so, you know, I got to give him that. I thought he did a pretty good job. And I certainly liked him in the second one. I liked how... I loved how he just got older, like we all do, except he's still cool because he got to fly 'em and I didn't. Yeah, yeah, there you go.

Sandy Winnefeld:

We are just about at the end here. But, you know, when you left the Navy, you flew at Delta for many, many years. And it strikes me that, you know, flying in an airliner, as painful as it can be with people who don't know how to get off an airplane, with food and all that, it really is the safest way to travel anywhere in the world. There are so many things other people don't think about that much.

But so you had to manage a lot of risk when you were a naval aviator, landing on an aircraft carrier at night, dogfighting in close quarters, dealing with everything that could go wrong with an airplane. When you went to Delta, how did you apply what you learned from the Navy to your second career as an airline pilot? Because you ended up in sort of a leadership role there as well.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

I did, yeah. Well, certainly in my fleet... I mean, you're right, it was a big transition. Also, I never intended on getting out. I mean, I'm eventually going to get out, but that wasn't my... that's about a three-beer story. But literally, I flipped the switch one day. Something had to happen. A personal experience that flipped me, which was sad and I still regret it. But Garth Brooks sang about "Unanswered Prayers," right? So I got out. But if I hadn't gotten out, I wouldn't be here with my beautiful wife and my beautiful son and daughter. So life has a way.

Anyway, so to answer your question, when I got out, I didn't even want to be an airline pilot. I was getting up, I was getting out for a different reason. I was getting out to chase airlines. Of course, a lot of guys would come back that we had served with. I mean, Vida came back and Truman came back. Andy Caputi and Mike Blue came back. A lot of guys came back and said, "Hey, you know, we got on with Delta," or "I got on with whoever. And this is how I get paid, and this is the vacation process. And I can still fly F-14s or A-4s or whatever in the reserves."

And so I was like, "Okay, I'll throw an application in." And I literally went with sort of an attitude, you know. I was like... I literally went to Atlanta, and all these guys are standing in their blue suits and their power ties and their briefcases with their resumes in there. And I was like, "Yeah, whatever." And I sat in the... on these two days, or whatever it was, of interviews, and I took one of those personality profile tests where it said, you know, "I'd rather smash my hand with a hammer or I'd rather throw up on a crowded bus." And I said, "Can I do both?" And they told me not to laugh. And I was... this is funny stuff.

And then I went in, and of course, the big story about Delta was that you actually went in and did an interview with a psychiatrist. And the old stories were he walked in and it was like a rocking chair and a regular chair or a chair right in front of his desk or a chair over here and, you know, whatever. And I walked in, I got called out of taking this test, and they said, "You got to go see Doc So-and-so." And I went in and I sat down right in front of him, and he said, "How's it going?" And I leaned on his desk, and I said, "Sometimes my soul leaves my body." It was like one of the questions I had on the test. And he goes, "Me, too." And so we... and I just didn't care. I didn't care. And he started... goes, "So tell me about yourself." And I started talking about my brothers and my family. You know, I wasn't talking about me and TOPGUN. I was just talking about that.

But anyway, that's an aside. So I get hired. And obviously, a lot of what I learned at TOPGUN and a lot of that was instilled in me, carried over. I always thought, you know, as my dad used to say, "I don't care what you do, but you be the best at what you can do. You're going to be the best. You can be a garbage man, be the best garbage man you can be. Going to be a bank robber, be the best banker robber you can be." So I just thought, "Okay, I'm going to be the best airline pilot."

So I continued to carry forward and trying to look my sharpest and be on time and be proactive and lead by example and take care of my crew and take all the responsibility on seriously, you know. And so I had... I was a threshold for a certain amount of behavior and, you know, a standard that I held people to and myself to. And the one thing I will tell you is that obviously, you know, the flying is vastly, drastically different. Right? But I used to say to sort of, you know, to try to make sense of it all is, you know, certainly flying at TOPGUN, if I had a bad day, it was just me. I was the smoking hole, you know, or if I was in the F-14, some other poor unfortunate was with me. But when you're flying a 767-400, you got 260 people behind you or whatever it is, you know, you got a few more... a few more people to be concerned about and you can't divorce yourself from what's going on on the other side of the cockpit door.

But all that to say, I think I carried forward within my commercial career the desire to still try to uphold the honor of the regiment. So I was asked to join the flight standards program when I checked out as a captain. And I did it for 15 years, the last 15 years of my Delta career. So I was a Line Check Airman. So I basically gave checkouts. I did mostly international the last 24 years of my career, I guess, or whatever.

So I tried to continue to teach, I tried to continue to do briefs and debriefs and "goods and others." And you know, I tried to carry forward with being approachable, helping people to be receptive of criticism and critique because at the end of the day I wanted them to be better as well. You know, whether you're flying with a G-suit and you're upside down with your hair on fire, or you're taking, you know, 250 people across the pond or wherever. It was important to kind of hold that level of professionalism. You owe it to them, you owe it to yourself. Right? So take that sort of like mantle of responsibility and carry it forward.

Wasn't nearly as satisfying, obviously. But as we all know—and Jaws, you certainly, you ran the whole race, you know—but as you get up there, you're very fortunate to stay operational. And I mean "point of the spear" operational. You become a manager, you become a leader, you become a mentor, and you're making decisions and setting policy, and young bucks are out there doing it. So if you get to be 40 in the Navy or the military and you're still flying high-performance aircraft, you're very lucky at the end of the day. If you're called to teach or if you recognize the value of instruction and advancing the product and the level of professionalism, you're kind of called to do it, no matter what line of work you end up in.

Sandy Winnefeld:

So, Hollywood, that is a fantastic way to end what has been a wonderful, wonderful interview for us. It's been five minutes... hey, it's been great for me to relive a lot of what you and I went through back in the day. And you're a great storyteller, and it's just terrific to be with you again. You haven't aged a bit. I hate to tell you that preservatives, but... Right?

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

I'll raise a glass to that. There you go.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Hey, I'm with you.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Wonderful. Thank you.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

If anybody's looking at me, that guy's seventy years old and he dyes his hair. So it makes my wife crazy because I'm turning my dog gray. I'm turning my wife gray. But I impart all of that negative energy out and put it on everybody else.

Sandy Winnefeld:

So it's all that clean living, I'm sure.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Yeah, that's... whatever. Yes.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much again.

Gregory "Hollywood" Dishart:

Thank you.

Dr. Sandra Magnus:

Thank you very much.

Sandy Winnefeld:

Yeah, absolutely.