FPP - 213 Top Gun, Tomcats, and AI Wingmen: Yank Cummings on Tomorrow’s War
5/4/20261 hr 19 min
JJ “Yank” Cummings returns to the Fighter Pilot Podcast for a wide-ranging conversation on F-14 Tomcats, carrier aviation, Top Gun: Maverick, and the rapidly approaching age of autonomous air combat. From war stories over Afghanistan to his work with Shield AI, Yank brings a rare blend of cockpit credibility, command experience, and forward-looking insight. This one is about more than airplanes; it’s about trust, technology, leadership, tomorrow’s war, and, somehow… robot cats.
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First 90 secondsTucker Hamilton· Host0:00
The views expressed in this episode are those of the participants and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States government. [upbeat rock music] Welcome back to the Fighter Pilot Podcast. I'm your host, Tucker Hamilton, call sign Cinco. And today, we have a truly remarkable guest returning to the show, retired Navy Captain JJ Cummings, call sign Yank. You may remember Yank from his October 2023 episode with Flounder, where he took us deep inside the world of carrier aviation and the revolutionary Gerald R. Ford. If you haven't listened to that one, please go check it out. Today, though, we're taking the conversation in a fascinating new direction. Yank has spent the last year at Shield AI, one of the most exciting autonomy companies in the defense space, and he's here to share his front-row perspective on where autonomous aviation is headed, the technology, the challenges, the ethical questions, and what it all means for the future of warfare. But before we get there, Yank takes us back to October 17th, 2001, flying F-14Bs off the USS Theodore Roosevelt for the first strikes in Afghanistan, a mission that would fundamentally change the way he led and the way he saw his purpose. This is a conversation about technology and leadership and sacrifice, what it means to serve something greater than yourself. And for our paid Patreon subscribers, you get a bonus discussion about Top Gun 2 from the man who helped write the screenplay. Get ready. Fight's on.