New DEMO! pilot
U.S. Air Force Maj. Josiah Gaffney, the Pacific Air Forces’ F-16 Fighting Falcon Demonstration Team pilot, pauses for a photo prior to a certification flight at Misawa Air Base, Japan, April 30, 2020. Following 15 minutes of high-speed passes and high-flying maneuvers, Lt. Gen. Kevin Schneider, 5th Air Force commander, certified Gaffney and his team of safety observers and maintainers on behalf of Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., PACAF commander. Gaffney joined the Air Force in 2005 as a cadet at the Air Force Academy and commissioned in 2009. He remembers watching the Thunderbirds fly at an airshow when he was 10 years old and realizing then that flying airplanes, and fighters specifically, was what he wanted to do when he grew up. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Melanie A. Bulow-Gonterman)