Jul 20, 2026 · 52 min · 14 segments
He was a national champion tennis player headed for Wimbledon, then COVID and injury ended that dream overnight. Two years later, Louis Skupien was strapped into a jet suit. Four years after that…
Louis CouppeyGuestTucker HamiltonHostBut, you know, where was that, like, that spark? The movie, but it turned into something more, right? Like, it wasn't just a movie.
So it actually goes a bit further back than "Top Gun." So I mean, that was kind of the reignition of it all really.
But when I was young, and I mean really, really young, my grandad, in his career he was a, a police officer, and I know for a fact from speaking to him that he always wanted to be a fighter pilot.
So, you know, kind of in his older years, he had this Spitfire simulator in his office up in Hampshire.
Um, whenever I went over there, and we'd play on this Spitfire simulator of his and, you know, we just had so much fun of it.
And you don't remember too much from when you're, like, a really young kid, but I remember a lot about those memories.
So there was clearly that sort of family passion for it there, I think, especially with him, and I was just so engaged with it.
But then life, school, tennis, whatever it was, just sort of lost any touch really with that passion.
But had all the models and the die-cast models, and they all got put away in a box and built up dust over, you know, probably a decade or something from when I was young.
And then, um, well, like I said, I watched "Top Gun: Maverick" in the cinemas and just my socks got blown off by that movie.
But more, more important than just being really amazed by a great movie, I was just absolutely enthralled by these jets, and I wanted to know more about what they were.
But, you know, where was that, like, that spark? The movie, but it turned into something more, right? Like, it wasn't just a movie.
So it actually goes a bit further back than "Top Gun." So I mean, that was kind of the reignition of it all really.
But when I was young, and I mean really, really young, my grandad, in his career he was a, a police officer, and I know for a fact from speaking to him that he always wanted to be a fighter pilot.
So, you know, kind of in his older years, he had this Spitfire simulator in his office up in Hampshire.
Um, whenever I went over there, and we'd play on this Spitfire simulator of his and, you know, we just had so much fun of it.
And you don't remember too much from when you're, like, a really young kid, but I remember a lot about those memories.
So there was clearly that sort of family passion for it there, I think, especially with him, and I was just so engaged with it.
But then life, school, tennis, whatever it was, just sort of lost any touch really with that passion.
But had all the models and the die-cast models, and they all got put away in a box and built up dust over, you know, probably a decade or something from when I was young.
And then, um, well, like I said, I watched "Top Gun: Maverick" in the cinemas and just my socks got blown off by that movie.
But more, more important than just being really amazed by a great movie, I was just absolutely enthralled by these jets, and I wanted to know more about what they were.
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