From the Crows' Nest

Ken Miller [00:00:00]:
Welcome to from the Crows' Nest, a podcast on Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations or EMSO. I'm your host, Ken Miller, Director of Advocacy and Outreach for the Association of Old Crows. You can follow me on LinkedIn or you can email me directly at host@fromthecrowsnest.org. As always, thanks for listening. Well, welcome back everyone to our first show since AOC Europe earlier this month. It was a great event. For those of you following the show while we were out there, we did our last regular episode was a special episode we brought to you a day later than usual. Featuring my guests were Eric Bamford, Tom Withington and Duncan McCrory. If you haven't had a chance to look at that listen to that episode yet, please go back and take a listen.

Ken Miller [00:00:52]:
It was a great conversation covering all the topics discussed at AOC Europe, mostly around multi domain operations and kind of how Europe itself is is focusing on this realm through investment in native European technology. A lot of talk about collaborations and partnerships while we're out there, but it definitely had a different feel because it was really a, an event that featured how Europe is taking its own step forward into this realm of multi domain operations apart from, you know, what has traditionally been a US Led effort. So it was a great conversation. Good, good, good episode with Eric and Tom and Duncan. We also did a number of booth interviews, interviews with exhibitors that we posted up on LinkedIn. They were not part of our regular podcast, but they are up on our social media just to show the vast array of technology that was on that was showcasing at the event. So a lot of good goodness while we were out there. It's great to be back home, but obviously always looking forward to that show each and every year while we were gone.

Ken Miller [00:01:59]:
President Trump submitted his what they call a skinny budget for fiscal year 2026 that came out on May 2nd. And it's basically just top line numbers that are guiding the annual budget process. Typically, the President submits his budget for the next fiscal year in February for the next fiscal year beginning October 1st. Sometimes with the new President, there's a later start sometimes and of course due to the full year continuing resolutions, that's carrying our funding through fiscally. The end of fiscal year 2025, there was a lot of uncertainty. So basically what the Trump administration did was instead of submitting a full budget, they just gave some top line numbers that will guide budget discussions over the summer in addition to the ongoing negotiations around the reconciliation package. So what does the what, what did the skinny budget tell us? Well, there's A, you know, depending on how you interpret the numbers. You know, obviously the President's going to say one thing, Republicans say a different thing, the Democrats say a different thing.

Ken Miller [00:03:02]:
But generally going from the Office of Management and Budget from, from the Trump administration, their skinny budget for fiscal year 2026 includes a $1 trillion defense budget and that represents roughly a 13% increase. However, depending on how you divide those, you, you draw those lines in between future spending as well as what's going to be coming up under reconciliation this year from Congress. It's either flat budget or a little, a slight increase or slight decrease again depending on how you draw the lines in between the accounts. What's interesting is that the, the reconciliation package that is, that Congress is currently in negotiation with, which will be passed this summer, is going to establish, I think around a $300 billion reconciliation package. That money can then be spent anywhere from fiscal year 2025 all the way through fiscal year 2029, depending on what the project is. So some of that money that's coming out of the reconciliation package is going to be part of the 26 defense budget and beyond. So whether or not that's actually part of the administration's defense budget submission, or you consider that just part of what Congress is doing and then attaching that it, that's where some of the uncertainty of the numbers come forward. But all that to say is the defense budget that the Trump administration put forward, really no surprises in it? Obviously no, there's not enough granularity to have any sort of, to look at items specifically for increases or decreases.

Ken Miller [00:04:39]:
But it does kind of map the agenda of the administration. A lot of investment on into space based technologies, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, quantum technologies in general, quantum radar, a lot of things that are focused on deterring Chinese aggression as well as other instability in the Indo Pacific region. Obviously it looks at, you know, our operations in Europe and Eastern Europe again when they're against with Russia and Ukraine. There's a lot of other smaller initiatives that aren't really related to ew, but it does kind of give you a guidance that they're, they're looking heavily into advanced next generation technology and a lot of that stuff, A lot of those investments touch on the EW Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations Base. So as we get through the summer, we're going to have a number of episodes that really start to break down both the reconciliation package and the President's budget and what Congress is proposing through the Defense Authorization bill and the appropriations bill in preparation for the, the next fiscal year beginning October 1, 2025. You've heard on the show before, look, Congress, you know, they have their budget process, it's by all intents and purposes broken. I mean, we, we are currently in a period of time where basically every deadline is being missed with the defense budget. So whether or not we actually have a defense budget passed by Congress and signed by the president by October 1st, unlikely, it's probably going to be entering into another series of CRs.

Ken Miller [00:06:15]:
And whether or not they can reach a full agreement has yet to be seen. But there's not a lot of optimism. But there's still going to be a lot of opportunity to focus investment spending into the right areas. And so that's what we're going to be tracking over the summer, a lot more episodes, kind of talking about some of the nuts and bolts that we're hearing from the congressional side coming up in June, July. So, you know, visit crows.org our website. There'll be other information that we release both, you know, written articles and other summaries and things of that nature that aren't podcast related. And then we'll obviously deal with that stuff on the podcast. So that's kind of where we're at.

Ken Miller [00:06:50]:
We've been waiting for this to come out and unfortunately came out during AOC Europe. And so we just didn't have a chance to cover it. But I wanted to let you know that, you know, we obviously are looking at that with much more detail and we'll be bringing that to you here in the coming weeks. All right, onto, onto our show for today. I am very pleased to have with me Luke Cabot. He is EW Technology and Training under the Technical and Strategic Services Division at Inzpire limited Inzpire. I had the opportunity of meeting them at AOC Europe last year when we were in Oslo. I was just really astounded by their approach.

Ken Miller [00:07:26]:
Had a great model for training, not just in ew, but training war fighters and other operators from all different perspectives, all different specialties, and training them in EW because they model the same thing that we've heard you've heard on the show before. They model with the understanding that no matter what you do in the military, you are touching the electromagnetic spectrum. And so you need to understand at least the basic principles of EW, no matter what you do. And so Inzpire they have, they do a lot of work in Europe. They do some work in the US But I wanted to have them on because they have a great model that I think as we've talked a lot on the show, this trying to get this pipeline of talent through education, through. Through the. The younger generations with colleges and universities getting them trained, getting them in, getting the military service schools up to speed on their EW training. The model that Inzpire uses, I think is.

Ken Miller [00:08:23]:
Is worth looking into because they have a great ability to model various technologies and really break down into the most simplest and easy to understand terms, which makes it accessible for everybody. So really wanted to have them on the podcast to kind of share a little bit about their perspective on training in EMS and some of the challenges they face and some of the opportunities that they create for their clients, who are oftentimes connected to the military. If they're not the military services specifically, they. Their. Their training efforts do produce tremendously positive results. So without further delay, I'd like to welcome Luke Cabot from Inzpire, and he is in the Technical and Strategic Services division for EW Technology and Training. Did I get that right, Like? Did I get that? Did I get your title right?

Luke Cabot [00:09:15]:
I think so. It's. That's right. It's a. It's a little bit of a mouthful, but we, we went with it and we're rolling with it and we love it.

Ken Miller [00:09:21]:
That's good. But for, For. For our sake, it's just EWTNT technology and training. I really appreciate you being on the show. I've been wanting to have you on the show since we met, I guess last year in 2024, at AOC Europe, sat down with you and your company, because here at aoc, you know, we take training and, and professional development and obviously of our customers very seriously. We had a great conversation, wanted to have you on the show to talk a little bit about some of the challenges and opportunities in training and how you, as a former operator, along with Inzpire and other organizations like your own, how do you go about addressing that challenge? So thanks for joining me.

Luke Cabot [00:09:59]:
It's an absolute pleasure, Ken. I've been looking forward to this for a while, so thank you.

Ken Miller [00:10:04]:
We just wrapped up AOC Europe 2025 a couple of weeks ago, and I know that unfortunately you were not able to be there because you've been on the road traveling yourself for teaching courses. So I wanted to start there basically here and now. A lot of people that are listening to the show probably don't exactly know what Inzpire does in terms of training and technical services, but you provide a phenomenal operator first perspective on a lot of these things that you provide to your customers. So talk a little bit about first, just what is Inzpire and kind of your role in that. In Terms of the technology and training services.

Luke Cabot [00:10:42]:
Absolutely no worries. So Inzpire by company standards is actually quite a small company of around 350 people. And we refer to ourselves almost like a family because it's a, it's a phenomenal environment to be in and work with. We are vast majority of us are ex forces, so the Royal Air Force, army or Navy and the company was founded by three ex forces personnel, actually a very small budget to begin with and the idea mushroom clouded. So we provide operator led experience training to all three armed services. We've also now set up a cyber division too and we sell an in flight tablet called the Gecko which is used as a electronic in flight bag as well. So operators can use that to plan their missions, load in flight reference cards, that sort of thing. So extremely useful.

Ken Miller [00:11:37]:
Well, and then that's interesting that a lot of times when we deal with certain clients or educators or so forth, the courses are, you know, kind of one off in the sense that the instructor teaches a course, but then that's all the interaction you get with the instructor or the organization that the instructor is a part of. Whereas with Inzpire it sounds like, you know, not only do can you get training, but you can then get technical services with that that also tie into the training and it creates a little bit more of a holistic approach for the operator. Is that correct? Is that an accurate way of talking about your company there?

Luke Cabot [00:12:12]:
Absolutely. So in terms of the Gecko tablet, the guys that design the software and program the tablet and train the personnel to use it, they've lived and breathed this on operations. In fact, way back in the day, I was one of the first guinea pigs to test the tablet. The first thing I did as a former RAF loadmaster was I asked, do you want me to properly ruggedize test this tablet for you? And they said, yes, do your worst. So the first thing I did was drop a general purpose machine gun and two boxes of ammo on it and it survived. The point is, is, is this stuff is tried and true and used in the field as with regards to our training, because we've lived and breathed what we did in the forces and now we are training it. We understand some of the challenges these guys are going through, particularly when they're first learning a highly complex or technical subject such as electronic warfare. So I will set the guys down on day one and say, look, I understand where you are now.

Luke Cabot [00:13:09]:
This, this is a tough subject to learn. We cannot get away from the fact that electronic warfare is hard. And I think we've glossed over this fact too much in Europe and worldwide. However, that doesn't mean we don't have to make it difficult or we don't have to make it boring. We can make it exciting and fun. We can have a laugh. And that is just as important when you're training somebody as getting the facts and the technical right. If you're not enjoying yourself, then what's the point?

Ken Miller [00:13:37]:
Ken, it's funny you mentioned that, because when we were at AOC Europe a couple years ago, it was, I guess, 2024. Whenever I go to these shows, I always go around, talk to all the vendors and just have conversations and learn what they're showcasing. And a large portion of that time, I quickly will get lost in terms of the technology that is being showcased. It's just a little bit over my head. Looks fascinating, but, you know, you get it. You can get into the weeds really quickly, and we. I can't remember coming to your booth and the way that it was designed, it had. You had it, like, all these equations all over the place.

Ken Miller [00:14:09]:
It was like it was clearly a booth that was showcasing your training. And just in a few brief moments in talking to you, you were talking about the course. And I just remember, like, you breaking it down in the most simple terms. And like, oh, my God. I. This is the first booth I've actually visited where I walked away. And I actually knew more than just simply what your product is. And I really appreciate it because your training approach aligned with very much what I.

Ken Miller [00:14:39]:
What I. What we talk about an awful lot is getting people to understand that you can know. Ew. You can be an engineer or a physicist or whatever, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you know. If you're an operator in the military, you're going to be using the spectrum, and you have to understand it to at least some level so that you understand how your actions affect the electromagnetic environment, and you're able to break that down at that very simple level and then build it as complicated as your class gets.

Luke Cabot [00:15:11]:
This is absolutely right. So our unique selling point for my group within the Inzpire company is training. So our ability to break down the seemingly impossibly complex subjects into simplistic terms that operators can understand at any level is crucial to what we do. But in order to do that, we need to make it exciting. So when we go to a show, there'll be disco lights on our stand, there will be graffiti on the boards, because nobody else is doing this. And it's original. If you want to Learn the spectrum. You have to immerse yourself in it.

Luke Cabot [00:15:45]:
You have to be fun and exciting. And you know what? I say this to everybody. I take this torch with me. I've got a $10 torch that I take everywhere with me.

Ken Miller [00:15:55]:
For the Americans listening. When you say torch, you mean a flashlight. So that's.

Luke Cabot [00:15:59]:
Yeah, that's right, guys. So I've got a flash.

Ken Miller [00:16:01]:
Yeah, we got you a little translation there. Because you're holding up the flashlight, I'm like, I better just jump in and clarify that. For that you don't actually carry around a torch, but go ahead. Sorry to interrupt you.

Luke Cabot [00:16:15]:
Yeah, we also use the words military and vitamins, which the Americans love, so you just have to get used to it. But the whole point is, with this flashlight, I can teach 99% of the electromagnetic spectrum and principles because the electromagnetic spectrum is simply light and it's different colors, 90% of which we can't see with our human eyes. So we have to be aware our military platforms emit throughout the spectrum. And if you emit too much, you're going to pay the price. You're going to die. These guys need to realize that those who emit less in the spectrum will live. So it's not about the high level technical stuff all the time, although that's important. It's understanding this environment that you're in.

Luke Cabot [00:16:58]:
And even if your platform is, is quote unquote silent, it really, really isn't. It is emitting light somewhere in that spectrum. We need to get a grip of this and understand it.

Ken Miller [00:17:08]:
We were talking about a while back, just a few weeks ago, I was talking with another colleague about, you know, a program in the US Military that I'll, you know, I'll keep quiet for now. But the notion was that this program got delayed because they started putting a bunch of capabilities on it. And then they went to test it and they were like, oh, crap, we can't be doing these two things at once because it's jamming each other. It's a challenge to look at a program that's several years into development and then you come up with the realization that, oh crap, we're jamming ourselves. So it's so important to get that training at the very beginning. And that's been something that we, we, we hit on a lot. As AOC is just at the very earliest stages of your training. When you get into the military academy or the service of basic training or your early school housing, like, you have to get some fundamental core understanding of the spectrum and how it relates to operations before you can fully grow into any specialty.

Luke Cabot [00:18:13]:
Absolutely. So I've just come back from teaching or two weeks abroad, mostly new operators to their platforms. These guys are the ranks of sergeant below, some of them lieutenants, some of them very early in their careers. And I've explained to them, although all of this technical stuff that we're going through now seems a little overwhelming and it will be, this is going to be important to you guys in three years time when some of you are pushing major squadron leader ranks or procurement managers. If you leave the services and if you don't start to explore and understand this right now, you're going to be in a position where you're going to have to make difficult decisions and you quite frankly don't understand the technology or the theory behind some of these systems that you're expecting to know about. Test, evaluate and even procure. You look at soldiers, can you look at the next generation of soldiers training? And I would advocate on day one, soldiers learn how to take apart a rifle. By day two, they should be learning about drones.

Luke Cabot [00:19:14]:
And we know about why this is now and the fact that they need some kind of awareness about drone technology and the cutting edge techniques that are now being used on the modern battlespace. By day three, these guys need to understand, oh, there's this thing called the spectrum, right. And by the way, you cannot conduct any operation anywhere unless you understand that you are emitting radiation 24 hours a day, seven days a week that can be detected.

Ken Miller [00:19:40]:
I want to talk a little bit about the, the course that you just had as, as a way of kind of giving some a concrete example, but, and then use that as a launching pad. Because the re. The reason why I wanted to have you on here was obviously to talk a little bit about Inzpire and what you offer, but also just the training in general on how the challenges of coalition training, even just in single country, unilateral training, so to speak, in country it has its own challenges. So I want to get into that from a, a 30,000 foot level, but to kind of help give a lay of the land. I want to talk a little bit about the course that you just took or the courses that, or the course that you just taught or are teaching and then to kind of give an idea of how they are structured and to really address what the warfighter needs to know going in and kind of how you, you tackle that in terms of specific kind of how the course is structured.

Luke Cabot [00:20:36]:
So I found over the years of training and teaching, as many people will have before me that mathematics is the universal language. So we have recently had no fewer than eight individual European nations on the course. I've just delivered all where technical English is not their first language. And yet by day three, we are writing equations about, we are estimating, we are looking at parameters on the board, and we are within 90% of the real answers. So the courses always start, and this is of utmost important. Day one, we start explaining radiation is light. As soon as they understand this and that, everything, air, matter, a radar system, an infrared optical train is simply a filter. When they understand those fundamental concepts, then the rest of the information starts to flow and drop in.

Luke Cabot [00:21:30]:
Very important. Day one, we have a look around. We find out what we like doing, what our hobbies are, what's our favorite film, that sort of thing. And it's a really good icebreaker. So we can start talking into nation about our platforms, how we operate our platforms, our specializations. What that enables us then to do in the background is tailor the course for these people. If we've got PhD electrical engineers, that's great. Let's start looking at filters and transforms.

Luke Cabot [00:21:58]:
If we have ab initio operators that have never seen this stuff before. Okay, let's talk about your missile warning sensor. What it's good for and what it's not so good for. If we have conscripted service that have been told they have to operate a search radar. Okay, mate. You might not have the educational background with somebody else, so let's bring you up to speed so you actually understand how your equipment's working rather than just press the buttons. So we'll spend the first few days getting to know each other with the fundamentals. I always like to start teaching radio frequency and radar first.

Luke Cabot [00:22:34]:
And the reason I like doing that is because people think it's more difficult because they can't see it. It's almost an instinctive thing that people like infrared because you can kind of see and sense it. It's heat, right? But the beauty of this is, is when we then get to the infrared lessons, they're kind of like, well, hang on a minute, it's just the same thing at a different frequency. So we'll use the radio frequency and the radar sections to start examining real world systems. So we'll look at surface to air missile guidance, we'll look at air to air stuff. If we've got Navy contingent, we'll look at naval weapons systems as well. And then we'll gradually progress through the course into the infrared region, into sensors and systems, and we use Real world specifications and estimations to bring out those lessons on a whiteboard. So not just here's a radar or here's a radio system.

Luke Cabot [00:23:25]:
Why do you need that system? Or why was a strategic surface to air missile system invented in the first place? There must have been a reason they had to do that. Well, it's because of A, B and C. So we break everything down and.

Ken Miller [00:23:38]:
Answering those why questions are, are really important because even though I think a lot of times when we think about math based education, we think in terms of functions and equations and answers to problems, but we don't often think about why that problem exists in the first place that we have to solve. And so it just become, you just get lost in the numbers. And so I love, I've always loved the why approach to education to begin with, because it's, that's how you get the brain. You, you free your brain to, to think about the possibilities. You said something that was very interesting and it sounds like you basically struck. In my experience, a lot of instructors will teach you what they know instead of teaching you what you don't know. And it sounds like you are very tuned or you take, you're very intentional in speaking to where the student is coming from versus ultimately where you, you know your, your experience and your knowledge and having them mirror what you, what you know. Is that an accurate summation?

Luke Cabot [00:24:51]:
It absolutely is. So there is nothing worse than a rigid course with rigid objectives that have to be fulfilled and you have to tick every single box going through the course. And the same courses, it's identical every time you run it. That's factually incorrect and not the way we should be doing it in the modern battle space. Okay, your course will have a tick list. It will have objectives to fulfill. But how you get to the end game largely depends on the audience that comes through the door. Because the audience will vary in A, what they think they need to know, and B, also what they actually need to know, but they don't yet understand it.

Luke Cabot [00:25:30]:
So we take our students on this journey, if you'll excuse the corny expression, where we will go through things that they haven't seen before, things that are new to them. But we'll make sure along the way that although this is hard going, this is quite complicated, we never completely lose the student. For example, some people will want to see the mathematics. They'll want to see a boxcar Fourier transform from the start all the way through to the frequency domain. And they'll understand all the complex maths throughout the steps. Other people will be lost on the first line. However, it's not about that, As I say to the students, it's about demonstrating that some guy has stood at the front of the class and shown you there is a link between time and frequency. And then we'll do a pictorial example, or we'll do a board example where the students in their head can transform functions from one dimension to another.

Luke Cabot [00:26:25]:
And they don't even have to do the mathematics. It's about the understanding of the concept.

Ken Miller [00:26:33]:
I want to go back to what you had said, too. I mean, because I think this is really an important point that. Where you talk about math being the universal language. It is a universal language. It's something that, you know, we, when we, when we deal with STEM and everything, you get into high schools and STEM classes and STEM projects, I think we quickly, in our education system quickly lose sight of the fact that literally everything is math. Music is math, literature is math. You know, when you're writing a paper, you're using mathematical concepts. Even when you do that, you're not maybe aware of it because you're so focused on the letters, but you're using mathematical concepts to write every time, single time you pick up a pen.

Ken Miller [00:27:13]:
That immersive understanding, I think is critical for kids and adults and operators to grapple with. And so that it's an element of the training that I've seen from Inzpire that piques my interest. You mentioned you use whiteboard and you have a lot of different engagement tools. Do you have like a. Do you use a software or do you use other visualizations and multimedia services, so to speak, to kind of showcase what is going on?

Luke Cabot [00:27:44]:
So one of our favorite things that we do, and I know this is a podcast so the listeners can't see, but you'll have to take Ken's word for this. We absolutely love our props in Inzpire. So I'm holding up a kids game here called Guess who. So most of the work we do is discussion and whiteboard for the maths. But to really hammer home some of the points, I take a huge briefcase with me wherever I go in the world, and it's full of. Of little things and props to hammer home the point so we can understand the world around us. Now this Guess who board I use to examine radar warning receivers and mission data. And I say to the guys, your mission data is like the Guess who bought.

Luke Cabot [00:28:26]:
So you have to flip the little characters down and you have to guess who you're looking at. And I say, well, this is just our radar Warning receivers working if somebody has the card that's got Ken's face on it. My guess who board is trying to ask the radar questions to try and figure out what radar is interrogating the platform. And it might be that the PRF of the platform happens to be brown hair or blue eyes or something. So I'll just simply flip down the cards in my mission data until I examine or I understand what it is I'm looking at. The big takeaway here is two things. Number one, there's usually never only one card, one unanimous or unambiguous answer at the end. There's usually several, depending on the radar system.

Luke Cabot [00:29:10]:
Because the eyes of the radar warning receiver, they don't have the resolution to narrow it down to exactly Ken or Sam or Jordan on the board. The second problem is, well, this guess who board here, it's got 24 characters on the board. Years and years ago, thankfully now the platforms were obsolete. But I program mission data sets with less information in the guess who board. So it's teaching the operators that, wow, unless you get a grip of this mission data and what you're asking for very, very quickly, your radar warning receiver is going to run out of memory space to actually do its job. So it's props like that. It's, it's, it's physical things like the torches, the little model aircraft. I've even got a blender I use to teach the Fourier transform with.

Luke Cabot [00:29:55]:
So we make a banana smoothie in it. That's the stuff that brings us to.

Ken Miller [00:29:59]:
Life, which, which is fascinating because it just kind of goes back into what you were saying and that we're immersed in the spectrum whether we want to or not. So once you start to realize that even kids games and other things that we grasp easily and we pat ourselves on the back that go, that's we, we understand that we do maybe, but like, there's a deeper level to almost everything that we think we know. And when you get into this type of education, that's really important to kind of understand that you, you can, you can break it down into the basic level and go. Continue to go deeper and deeper. What it sounds like, it sounds like you put, kind of put students in a good position to also know how to ask questions about what they don't know. Because you, you're talking about the, you know, like very rarely is there a solution or a problem that's unambiguous. So there's that always going to be that doubt or uncertainty and being able to say, hey, I feel like there's something I'm seeing that I'm not recognizing. Am I missing a principle or some sort of concept and being able to understand help to kind of pinpoint the problem for a better solution, whether it's within the class or within your own coalition of operators.

Luke Cabot [00:31:08]:
You're absolutely right, Ken. So before we even start teaching, we establish the ground rules. And the ground rules go like this. Number one, no question is off limit in the classroom. Absolutely nothing. And the only reason I won't ask something is if it's an answer. Something rather is if it's an unclassified course. And the answer would be above that classification.

Luke Cabot [00:31:30]:
But apart from that, no question is off limits, which means the course often changes, the timetable changes. And I've been known to spend half a day going through a cohort's question because it's important to them. We've covered everything from rotor blade modulation all the way through to cruise missile attacks on modern surface to air missile systems, hypersonic weapons, ballistic missile detection, and everything in between, because it's important for the students to know the answer. The second thing, and this is very important, is I say that Luke doesn't know everything. And I strongly believe that if you think you're an expert, then you have failed. So I say to the students, if you have a unique background or you have something that you know very specifically, come to the front grade, grab a whiteboard pen, and teach us all. It's okay to say, I don't know. Now, as an instructor, you have to have the confidence and the guts to be able to say, I don't know.

Luke Cabot [00:32:26]:
That doesn't excuse being lazy and not doing your job. But you have to have the confidence to say, hey, this is outside of my swim lane. I don't know. However, I might be able to point you in the right direction, or let's estimate some parameters so that you can go back to your unit and you know, at least in part, the answer. So we do this a lot.

Ken Miller [00:32:45]:
Well, I assume that that also helps your students when they get back to be better at mission planning and discussion, just about operations in general. Because they're going to have that critical thinking capability as it relates to the spectrum, and they can kind of make sure that that mission planning effort meets all the criteria of successful MSO principles as you're building that, as you're building those specific missions that you have to fly or fight in.

Luke Cabot [00:33:16]:
Definitely. So the course output standard cannot be data analyst. That's been doing the job for decades. That simply can't happen. In a two, three, four week long course. But what we can enable the operators to have is this language so they can speak to the people that are programming data or, or they're programming a radar trial or an infrared sensor and they can actually talk to each other. They know that sensors capabilities may be limited against certain systems. They know that preparation of data will take time.

Luke Cabot [00:33:49]:
They know that hey, if they can alter their mission parameters slightly, their data set might work 150% better because it's got less to deal with. So it's about making sure that the operators can speak to the analysts and speak to the data programmers and actually get a product that works instead of like I was back in the day having a screen just full of tags and stuff that you simply can't use because it's beyond useful.

Ken Miller [00:34:18]:
So I want to kind of take a few minutes to bring this up more to the 30,000 foot level because you know, we've established that you the way that Inzpire trains and you are you interact with operators day in and day out and you help them understand the, the fight that they are, the mission that they are fighting. I want to talk to you a little, ask you a little bit about kind of the, the challenge of training in general in EW as it pertains to coalition warfare or even just like again single service or country training. Inzpire does a lot of work with UK government aid, but you're all over the place. What is your perspective on the importance of training? Or maybe a, a slightly different way of putting it is when you look at today's training regimen that is out there for our operators, whether EW or, or similar or related disciplines, what are you observing in terms of some of the challenges that training faces today?

Luke Cabot [00:35:21]:
So I will answer ambiguously for all services and actually I'm seeing this throughout the world. So all services and in all countries that I training one of the key challenges is budget and let me explain that very carefully. So the issue we're facing is there's been undoubtedly a training deficit in electronic warfare and a couple of conferences I've been in NATO openly admitted that there is a distinct lack of EW education. Now I'll use the word education, vice training because training is very much a by numbers approach. Here is electronic attack, here is electronic defense, here is electronic protection, blah blah, blah. Here are the NATO tasks and the NATO missions. That's great, but that's training. Education is.

Luke Cabot [00:36:14]:
Well, why is that then, mate? Why are you doing that? Why do you need to do that? What's this for why are they going to do that? What's their next move? And at the moment, it's very, very sparse. What seems to happen is people hide behind in organizations. Hide behind. There's no money for this training or that's going to cost a lot. What they're not realizing is if you don't spend that money right now, you are going to have problems at the next conflict. Because on the front line is the wrong time to ask stupid questions. The right time to ask stupid questions is in the classroom. Because, in fact, there is no such thing as a stupid question in the classroom.

Luke Cabot [00:36:53]:
And we can answer and we can theorize all we want in the classroom because it's a safe environment. And do you know what? We can even have a laugh about it along the way. Oh, that wasn't such a good idea. Let's try this instead. You can't do that in the front line. It's too late.

Ken Miller [00:37:07]:
Well, I was just gonna say it's. It's ironic, too, that, you know, they don't spend the money on training because it's too expensive. But then when the problem arises in the battlefield, the solution is exponentially more expensive when you're not prepared than if you had just spent the money early on. And so trying to get that message out that, yeah, okay, you have a budget. I get, I understand the budgetary pressures, but it's a lot cheaper if you do it up on the front end than if you wait until you're out in the field facing the threat.

Luke Cabot [00:37:36]:
And I can cite several examples. Of course, you could pay the ultimate price, which is absolutely not what we want to do. But let's take a step back. A Canadian army officer come up to me at one of the shows, and he said something that absolutely resonated with me. He says, you guys Inzpire. You're here. So that when I look around this show and pick up one of these gray boxes, and I know that it's going to be useful to me and not a $30,000 paperweight. And I thought that was brilliant.

Luke Cabot [00:38:06]:
That's exactly what we're trying to do. We're trying to save people's lives and also save people's money, make them an informed customer.

Ken Miller [00:38:14]:
So, you know, when you look at, you know, training was a topic, we say, when we were at AOC Europe in Rome, one of the toughest assignments of working at aoc. But the conversation obviously was on. On MDO Multi Domain Operations. And then, of course, training was underneath that discussion throughout the week. But, you know, the. The focus that we have, you know, we talk a lot from a US Perspective here on, from the crow's nest a lot of times is just that, you know, we don't have enough training assets or even training strategy for all the, the people that we need to bring into the MSO world. Then when you start to look at coalitions and where NATO is going and NATO's effort for more native EW capabilities, in your mind, what is the state of coalition training today? And are we on? What could you talk about? Like, are we on? Are we on the right path? Or, you know, where do we have to kind of go to address some of the real challenges today for coalition training? Because I, I, I get the sense that there's a lot of recognition that we need the training, we want the training. People want to give the money to the training if they can find it.

Ken Miller [00:39:27]:
But I don't necessarily see the level of progress on the back end that or, you know, in terms of results that, you know, give me full confidence that we understand the problem at hand. So talk a little bit about that path we're on, particularly from a coalition perspective.

Luke Cabot [00:39:46]:
So I will do one of the things, and I'm going to misquote Einstein or Shakespeare or whoever it was terribly. But the gist of the quote was, if we do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result, then that's madness. And unfortunately, that is what we tend to do. We tend to not learn lessons and keep doing the same thing over and over again. So the progression of training and coalition training is in, it's really twofold. Number one, we are starting to see pockets of this progressing extremely well. I'll use a helicopter example. So the Multinational Helicopter Trading center, or MHTC in Sintra in Portugal, they bring in many, many different European nations.

Luke Cabot [00:40:29]:
Ironically, this is not NATO. It's a partnership exercise here. They run real live exercises on live EW reigning with Kameo training, tactical training, and it's a multinational effort. They've got simulators there, and it's run by experienced people that have lived and briefed this stuff. So we are starting to see real breakthroughs. And the word is, is, is, is, is spreading around. So that's good. On the coalition front, on the general awareness and the fact that we don't have a lot of people that are training or a lot of opportunities to train.

Luke Cabot [00:41:02]:
The only way to change that, Ken, is to do something different, start doing things and see what happens. So I've started running a lecture series from Lincoln. It started here comes the swearing. So get ready, start with a lesson. I called Nevermind the Bollocks. His mission data. So I saw Richard Branson's new mascot on the side of his Virgin Atlantic jet, which was Ruby Rebel. And she wore a little Sex Pistols pin badge that clearly said the name of their first album.

Luke Cabot [00:41:31]:
Album Nevermind the Bollocks. So I'm like, let's use that, let's embrace it, because it's going to bring people along because it's controversial. There'll be haters, there'll be lovers. Do you know What? We had 50 people in that audience. We had five different industries, we had armed forces, we had academics. And since then I've done another two lectures and I'm going to continue doing these on a three month basis because it raises the awareness. It's not about the profit, Ken. It's about, let's all sit in a room, let's have a beer, let's talk about aerospace and electronic warfare and have an armistice of what we don't know.

Luke Cabot [00:42:10]:
Let's teach each other all of these complex topics and let's together as a coalition, as a team, drive the education forward.

Ken Miller [00:42:19]:
Nothing gets me to want to drink a beer more than talking about ew. So I think that that's a, that's a nice marriage of opportunity there. So just as a little game, just let's, let's do a little role playing here. You've just been. Luke, you have just been appointed to lead NATO's EW training for coalition partners. What would be the first thing you would do to get coalition training right here on out was the number one reform that you would want to see implemented to make training more effective for coalition.

Luke Cabot [00:42:55]:
Right. I want the 5001000 personnel, whoever it is, on this station in the hangar at 0800. And we are going to do three days of fundamental electronic warfare, everyone. That's the first thing that gets implemented. It's mandated. You need to know this because this is going to kill you no matter.

Ken Miller [00:43:17]:
What you do in the military.

Luke Cabot [00:43:19]:
I don't care if you sweep the floor, Ken, you have to know about this stuff because if you don't, you don't understand how important this is. That's the first thing I'm implementing. The second thing I'm going to do is an identical course, maybe with some canapes in a hotel, but all the executives are going to do the same thing. We're going to sit somewhere and for three days I'm going to teach you. Sir, politely, this is electronic warfare. This is what your soldiers, sailors and airmen have to fight in. And this is why it's so damn important to get it right. If we don't do that, we are going to keep screwing up and ultimately we are going to pay a very big price for that.

Ken Miller [00:43:56]:
Last question. You kind of as, you know, looking ahead, you know, within our industry, AOC has some professional development courses. You know, we, we've looked into certifications and you know, we, we offer some things that have credits, but obviously the holistic approach. There's a lot more that we could do as an association. A lot more. A lot of other organizations, just from the perspective of AOC and Inzpire and other organizations kind of in this space where we're taking on responsibility to train, what can we do differently in a collaborative way to make sure that we can communicate to our clients, to our customers, to the warfighters that, hey, we're working together for this. And what can we do more as an industry to ensure that our warfighters are getting the training that they need?

Luke Cabot [00:44:51]:
So I'll say this. At most of the AOC events I've been to and all the academic events or the symposiums I've been to, I see a lot of technology, I see a lot of highly, arguably very clever people talking about the latest digital sampler or FPGA or here's a new comment technique or look at our new cables. That's wonderful and we absolutely need that. But there's nobody that gets up on stage and says, hello everybody. Does anyone know how a Doppler radar works? No? Oh, let's teach it then. Let's have a lesson. Why don't we interlace this with our large AOC events or any other symposia we're doing. We do see a lot of talk about arguably what's happening on the front line, which is good and that's needed.

Luke Cabot [00:45:38]:
We see a lot of technology, we see a lot of sales pictures, but we don't get a lot of, I'm guessing 50% of you don't know some of the fundamentals. So why don't we do a lesson on this? Maybe we start doing that. Maybe we start having a TED Talk style conference where we interlace these topics with the other things so people get that education. Second, podcasts, fantastic. Virtual delivery, fantastic. Publications and magazines, fantastic. But let's not forget that all of these methods, you're missing that face to face element as well, where there's a dude or a lady stood on stage, that is there with their expressions, their body language, they're teaching you things, they're there so that you can ask questions to them. So I think if we're not careful, we can distance ourselves from, from the sheer power of face to face and quite frankly, without shooting anybody in the foot here, we could, we could be missing that.

Luke Cabot [00:46:37]:
And I think that is important not to forget.

Ken Miller [00:46:40]:
Yeah, I see, I see the, the push for more face to face kind of, you know, slowly coming back over, over the years. Obviously we had Covid, but in the U.S. you know, we had a executive order making, you know, face to face a little bit harder with travel, meetings and stuff. And so it's always, it's a, it's a new dynamic that I think is, is, is challenging to kind of navigate. But I 100% agree. Having face to face conversation, it's a lot easier to ask questions and even to generate questions. For myself, I will generate a question in my head by an in person conversation a lot faster than just listening to it virtually over the computer. Your brain will process that information a lot more immediately than virtually.

Ken Miller [00:47:21]:
So I'm not sure how that works, but I'm sure that there's a, a principle behind it and as to why. But that's, you know, getting that face to face creates that right environment for learning.

Luke Cabot [00:47:30]:
It's the festival principle. Right. So I'm going to confess to not owning, despite being a rocker, not owning a single Metallica cd. And I've, I've always been take them or leave them and it's sort of an audio recording is okay. I'm telling you, Ken, I saw Metallica in Download Festival in the UK and they were phenomenal. I was an instant convert. The atmosphere was electric, everyone was buzzing, there was interaction. And that's kind of what I liken that face to face conversation and lecturing to be like.

Ken Miller [00:48:03]:
Well, Luke, I really appreciate you taking time to join me here. Want to have you back on to keep talking about this because no matter the topic, the technology area, the tactics that we talk about, whatever, training is always going to undercut this. It's always going to be the kind of the foundation to everything that we do. So it's a topic that we need to keep revisiting and hopefully we can find a way to work more closely with you and your company because I think that this is an area that you never successfully complete your mission in training you always have to be training, you always have to be learning because the threat is always changing and the operation is always changing and the mission is always changing. So it's one of those areas that you find fall exponentially further behind if you don't get it right at the beginning. So really appreciate you taking time to join me. Looking forward to continue working with you and having you back on here on the show in in the near future.

Luke Cabot [00:48:55]:
Absolutely, Ken. It's been amazing. I can't wait to come back. Thank you very much for having me. What a blast. Thank you.

Ken Miller [00:49:02]:
That will conclude this episode of From the Crows' Nest. I'd like to thank my guest Luke Cabot from Inzpire for joining me on the show. As always, please take a moment to review, share and subscribe to this podcast. We always enjoy hearing from our listeners. We have a link for a survey in the show notes, so please, if you have not already done that, please take a few moments to tell us what you think about the show, changes that you think we can make that you would like to see as our listeners. And we are in a constant state of adaptation, so we are always looking for ways to improve it and we need to hear from you. So take a moment now to fill out that survey and let us know how we're doing. That's it for today.

Ken Miller [00:49:40]:
Thanks for listening.