Scott "Kidd" Poteet is an American

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

retired from the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army S ...

. He is a collaborator and friend of

Jared Isaacman Jared Isaacman (born February 11, 1983) is an American entrepreneur, pilot, philanthropist, and commercial astronaut. He is the founder, CEO of Draken International, a private air force provider and Shift4 Payments, a payment processor. As ...

. Poteet is slated to fly on

Polaris Dawn Polaris Dawn is a planned private human spaceflight mission, operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman, scheduled to launch no earlier than March 2023. The flight will be using the Crew Dragon capsule, and is the first ...

, a private space mission.

Early life

He earned a bachelor's degree in

Outdoor education Outdoor education is organized learning that takes place in the outdoors. Outdoor education programs sometimes involve residential or journey wilderness-based experiences in which students participate in a variety of adventurous challenges and ou ...

at the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, m ...

and later attended the

Air Command and Staff College The Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) is located at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama and is the United States Air Force's intermediate-level Professional Military Education (PME) school. It is a subordinate command of the Air Uni ...

Air Force career

Scott Poteet is a retired

lieutenant colonel who served 20 years in a variety of roles including

commanding officer The commanding officer (CO) or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latit ...

of the

64th Aggressor Squadron The 64th Aggressor Squadron is a United States Air Force unit. It is assigned to the 57th Adversary Tactics Group at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. The 64th AGRS is assigned 24 F-16C Fighting Falcon aircraft, painted in camouflage schemes ...

, pilot in the

USAF Thunderbirds The USAF Air Demonstration Squadron ("Thunderbirds") is the air demonstration squadron of the United States Air Force The Thunderbirds are assigned to the 57th Wing, and are based at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. Created in 1953, the USAF Th ...

(Position 4), test and evaluation pilot, and

commercial pilot A commercial pilot licence (CPL) is a type of pilot licence that permits the holder to act as a pilot of an aircraft and be paid for their work. Different licenses are issued for the major aircraft categories: airplanes, airships, balloons, glid ...

. Poteet has over 3,200 flight hours on the

F-16 The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it evolved into a successful ...

, A-4,

T-38 T38 or T-38 may refer to: * T38 (classification), a disability sport classification for disability athletics * T.38, a standard for fax over IP * T-38 tank, a Soviet light tank * Allison T38, a turboprop aircraft engine * Northrop T-38 Talon, a U ...

, T-37, T-3 and

Alpha Jet The Dassault/Dornier Alpha Jet is a light attack jet and advanced jet trainer co-manufactured by Dassault Aviation of France and Dornier Flugzeugwerke of Germany. It was developed specifically to perform trainer and light attack missions, as ...

. He logged over 400 combat hours during Operations ''

Northern Watch Operation Northern Watch (ONW), the successor to Operation Provide Comfort, was a Combined Task Force (CTF) charged with enforcing its own no-fly zone above the 36th parallel in Iraq. Its mission began on 1 January 1997. The coalition partners ...

'' ,''

Southern Watch Operation Southern Watch was an air-centric military operation conducted by the United States Department of Defense from Summer 1992 to Spring 2003. United States Central Command's Joint Task Force Southwest Asia (JTF-SWA) had the mission of mon ...

'', '' Joint Guardian'', '' Freedom's Sentinel'', and '' Resolute Support''.

Personal life

Poteet and his wife Kristen have two daughters and one son. He is a runner and

triathlete A triathlon is an endurance multisport race consisting of swimming, cycling, and running over various distances. Triathletes compete for fastest overall completion time, racing each segment sequentially with the time transitioning between ...

, competing in 15 Ironman triathlons since 2000, including four

Ironman World Championship The Ironman World Championship has been held annually in Hawaii since 1978, with an additional race in 1982. It is owned and organized by the World Triathlon Corporation. It is the annual culmination of a series of Ironman triathlon qualification ...

s in

Kailua-Kona, Hawaii Kailua-Kona is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States. It is also known as Kailua (a name it shares with a community located on the windward side of Oahu), as Kona (a name it shares ...

Media coverage

He appears as a mission director in the 2021

docuseries Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. *Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...

'' Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission to Space''.

Early life

Air Force career

Personal life

Media coverage

References

See also