Q&A: Lt. Col. Matthew Olde, F-15 pilot who often performs flyovers

HAZELWOOD, Missouri -

Air Force Lt. Col. Matthew Olde is an F-15 Legacy and Advanced Eagle acceptance pilot and the F-15 director of programs and operations at Defense Contract Management Agency Boeing St. Louis.

He is also a government flight representative. He oversees all aspects of the F-15 Advanced Eagle's $30.1 billion program and works closely with the Air Force's F-15 Systems Program Office and Boeing to make sure that aircraft is ready to ensure warfighters' mission readiness. He joined the DCMA team in 2021.

Prior to this assignment, Olde was a Combat Air Forces Fellow stationed at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. While there, he helped build the Ramstein Aerial Defense Integration Lab, and he was also the chief of Advanced Program Integration at U.S. Air Forces in Europe headquarters - Air Forces Africa.

Olde received his bachelor's degree in business management from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, in 2004. He was commissioned into the Air Force after completing Officer Training School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, in 2006. He is a senior pilot and evaluator who has accumulated more than 2,000 flight hours in the F-15E, F-15EX, F-15C, F-15QA, and F-15SA.

On July 26, Olde flew an F-15 in a flyover at the St. Louis Cardinals stadium during Military Appreciation Night. In addition, other military personnel from DCMA Boeing St. Louis participated. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jon Malycke flew the F/A-18 Hornet and Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Vey, who was Malycke's weapons system officer, joined Olde this year.

Q1. How long have you been a pilot and what types of aircraft do you fly?

A1. I have been a fighter pilot flying variants of the F-15 Strike Eagle aircraft since 2011. Prior to that, I was an F-15E weapons system officer from 2008 to 2011. I have flown the F-15E, C, EX, SA, and QA. I have also flown the standard Air Force trainers, which includes the T-6A Texan II, T-38C Talon, T-1A Jayhawk, and the T-39 Sabreliner, as a student.

Q2. Why did you decide to become a pilot? Who influenced you and why?

A2. The biggest influence was my father, who is a retired Air Force F-4E Phantom II and A-10 Thunderbolt II pilot. I was also influenced by my uncle, an F-4E and F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot, and my grandfather, who flew the B-25 Mitchell Bomber and the C-47 Skytrain aircraft. My older brother also was a weapons system officer in the F-15E.

Q3. You recently participated in a flyover for the St. Louis Cardinals baseball game during Military Appreciation Night on July 26. How did you get involved with this program and how long have you participated?

A3. I became involved with this event shortly after I arrived at DCMA Boeing St. Louis in 2021. I asked the team, "When is the Cardinals' flyover?" I was told, "We don't do that at DCMA, and Boeing said that we can't do that without the Air Force's permission." I am a third-generation Cardinals fan, and I know the community of St. Louis has built the F-15 for 50 years, so it seemed like a missed opportunity to showcase the aircraft. While recognizing this is not a traditional mission of DCMA, I had to at least try. We were, at the time, one of only two locations flying the F-15 Advanced Eagle.

I credit Navy Capt. Ryan Batchelor, the previous contract management office commander, and all the Aircraft Operations leadership at the Central Region and headquarters level for supporting this effort. The Air Force Materiel Command and the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center helped make this a reality, and I executed the first flyover in 2022. I am grateful that our current DCMA Director, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Masiello, and Navy Capt. Daniel Martin, our new CMO commander, for placing their trust and faith in me and the team to accomplish this event. Without our leadership, this would not have happened.

In addition, I want to thank Navy Lt. Cmdr. Jon Malycke from our CMO, who flew the F/A-18 Hornet, and Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Vey, who was his weapons system officer, for participating with me this year and for flying great formation with a dissimilar aircraft. I appreciate both for making the event a success and representing DCMA Boeing St. Louis in a positive light.

Q4. What is involved with preparing for a flyover? How do you get mentally and physically prepared?

A4. There is quite a bit of preparation involved for this event. After I obtained the required signatures from the Cardinals' organization, I staffed a waiver package through DCMA leadership and to the Air Force, and for this year, the Navy. I received approval from both services for this event. I then started coordinating with the baseball team's band director, ground control personnel, and the F-15 Systems Program Office. I also worked with the Federal Aviation Administration, specifically with the air traffic controllers, for flight timing and temporary flight restriction overflight. The St. Louis Arch, which is a national monument, is close to Busch Stadium where the Cardinals play, so quite a bit of effort and coordination went into ensuring a quality flyover while maintaining the required distances, both vertical and horizontal, from the arch.

From a mental preparation standpoint, even though I have performed this flyover the previous two years and have executed four other national event flyovers, I ran the profile into a simulator approximately 20 times over two hours. In addition to running the profile with no induced errors, I ran it while inducing multiple timing errors into the simulator to cause split-second decision making on adjusting airspeed/groundspeed to meet a changing time on target. This practice proved beneficial because even after doing this for two years in a row, there was a 60-second slip this year to our time on target. At the time, I was letting the formation down into the low-altitude structure to push to Busch Stadium. From our mission planning, I knew, that 60-second slip was a mere 360-degree spin at 350 knots groundspeed with 3Gs on the jet. Without quality planning and understanding of the performance of the aircraft, especially at a low altitude, timing adjustments could be more complicated.

From a physical standpoint, the bottom line is fighter pilots "don't skip leg day." A strong core and having a lot of neck and lower body strength is critical when you are generating forces on your body, which multiples your body's weight by up to nine times.

Q5. Who else did you work with within the agency and outside of it to make this flyover a success?

A5. The team mindset to make this flyover happen for the community is truly something awesome. These events have been an enterprise effort between DCMA, the program office, and Boeing. Our DCMA quality assurance specialists were also critical in ensuring the jets were ready for the flyover. We have some of the most talented and experienced F-15 and F-18 quality assurance personnel, and our team here is led by Jay Eilerman, an outstanding quality supervisor.

Q6. Were there any takeaways from this year's flyover? How was it the same or different than previous years?

A6. The main takeaway from this year's flyover is that I prefer to allow the last note of the band's performance of the National Anthem to fully complete prior to a flyover over the stadium. Our engines are loud and with our approval to execute the unrestricted climb over the stadium, it can substantially drown out the band. In 2022 and 2023, I felt that by hitting the last note, I drowned out the band. The various bands that perform at these events are usually high school students, and this is a cool experience for them. I did not want to take away from their experience this year, so I targeted minus 0 to plus 3 seconds after the end of the last note. In execution, I hit three seconds, and I think it worked out nicely. In 2022, I was a single-ship flyover. In 2023, I had a second F-15 on my wing. This year, we executed with an F/A-18 on my wing. This was, in anyone's recent memory, the first mixed-service DCMA flyover.

Our business is a dangerous one, and we do not need to make it more dangerous through complacency or poor planning. While that does not mean we don't make mistakes, it does mean that we strive to make very few, and if we have done our job right, the mistakes we make are not unrecoverable. That's operational risk mitigation in a nutshell.

Q7. Why is participating in events like this important for DCMA and the military in general?

A7. I believe events like this, which involve working with the contractor to bring awareness of our products, efforts, and mission to the public, will only help the agency. This event is something the DCMA team can look forward to. Many DCMA, Air Force, and Navy personnel attended the game to see the jets they support fly over in an awesome fashion. The "Viking" unrestricted climb is a St. Louis flight operations way of life, and that's what prompted me to request that climb over Busch Stadium in 2022, and it was again approved for 2023 and 2024. If I can help boost everyone's morale with just a few seconds in view of the crowd, then hopefully they will go back to work on Monday even more motivated for our mission.

Q8. What does it take to become a pilot? Can you describe the Air Force's flight school and how challenging it can be?

A8. Becoming a pilot is an incredible experience and accomplishment, especially becoming a fighter pilot. I was recently able to fly 1,000 feet over downtown St. Louis at 400 miles per hour, with a target of minus 0 to plus 3 seconds and taking off about 50 minutes prior, which is pretty cool. A pilot must think quickly, make good decisions and be confident in those decisions, and rely upon training and planning when things become chaotic. In the case of the two-seat F-15 Legacy and Advanced Eagle variants, we also fly with a weapons system officer. A good WSO is worth more than their weight in gold, and for this event, I flew with Michael Douglass, a Boeing test WSO. My DCMA WSO left in June for another assignment and his replacement won't be here until later this year.

Flight school has changed quite a bit since I went through it. However, the basic flow is the same. New undergraduate pilot training students will complete rigorous academics, numerous computer-based training and basic simulator events. They later participate in advanced simulator events, and then complete the flying syllabus. I was honored and fortunate to complete my pilot training at Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas. Because of my background as a Strike Eagle WSO, by the time I went to training, I had about 600 hours in the F-15E, and approximately 200 combat hours over Afghanistan, so I was prepared for my pilot training.

Q9. How often do you fly?

A9. At a minimum, we require 30 sorties every six months. DCMA leaders continue to support and encourage their pilots to ensure the desired proficiency sorties for all aircrew. Our sorties are higher risk than traditional Air Force sorties might be, as we are flying untested aircraft. We are also going Mach 2, shutting down and restarting engines in flight, and all-around executing what is called a full "Acceptance/Functional Check Flight" per the technical orders and the contracts we manage.

I will never turn down a sortie because every time I get airborne, I learn something to put in my experience bag. My father taught me that concept - the moment you think you've stopped learning is the moment you should stop flying.

In addition to my primary job in St. Louis, I support the F-15E acceptance check flights at DCMA Aircraft Integrated Maintenance Operations in San Antonio, Texas, as they do not have any F-15 pilots assigned. I also support flying operations and occasionally provide check rides for my Air Force counterparts at the F-15 depot at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. This allows me to stay linked in with the only other location that executes flying functional check flights as a primary mission. Our crosstalk and sharing of best practices have made all of us better pilots. I recently was fortunate to fly the F-15C with the Portland Air National Guard. By taking opportunities to fly with other units, it allows me to bring best practices back to St. Louis and make myself and our CMO even better.

Q10. Why is DCMA important to you? What are your future career plans?

A10. DCMA is important because we are that narrow gate between the military industrial complex and the warfighter. Mission success can and does often come down to individual relationships between what I call "The Triangle: DCMA, program offices, and the contractor." In the case of the F-15 and the programs I help oversee, my goal is to shrink the triangle down to a single point or as close to it as possible, where all three of those entities are in sync - DCMA Boeing St. Louis, Boeing, and the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center. We all work together to get products to where they need to go and when they need to get there to further U.S. national security.

I do not know what my future plans hold, however, I recently received permission to extend at DCMA Boeing St. Louis until 2027. By that time, I will have 21 years of service in the Air Force and will have been at DCMA for six years. While I'm not sure what will happen after that, I will say that this has been the most rewarding assignment, outside of flying in combat supporting Americans on the ground, that I have had during my time in the Air Force. There has not been a single day in the three years I have been here that I did not go to sleep knowing I made a difference. I would share those thoughts with anyone - military or civilian - who might be interested in working at DCMA.

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