Top Gun Instructor Adam Farber '00 Shares His Fighter Rules to Live By

Upon his graduation from Gunn in 2000, Farber reapplied to become a pilot and was accepted, only to learn that the U.S. Navy was replacing the F-14 with the Super Hornet, retiring his dreams along with the aircraft. He missed his chance to fly a Tomcat by just one year. He reflected on these events — and the news that he received as a student at Gunn, that his childhood home had burned down — as lessons in resilience. “I didn’t quit. I didn’t give up. I just kept going,” he said. 

Farber earned his commission and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Naval Academy in 2004. He proceeded to the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, where he trained as a Naval Flight Officer on what he termed “the second greatest aircraft ever designed.”  As a “licensed backseat driver,” the equivalent of Anthony Edwards’ role as “Goose” in “Top Gun,” Farber said noted he had no control of the throttle, or stick, so his options — if something happened to go wrong on takeoff or landing — were to either stay with the aircraft, or to eject.

“We have fighter rules to live by. These are rules that will keep you safe. The way you land on an aircraft carrier is you put this up-to-42,000-pound aircraft on a three-foot by three-foot target on a 600-foot landing strip, and you’re flying about 150,000 miles an hour when you’re doing it,“ he explained. “So, we need something to help guide us to do that consistently, repeatedly, and most importantly, in the nighttime when it’s dark and scary.”

“My first night landing on an aircraft carrier was the most scared I’ve ever been in an aircraft,” he said, recalling. “My pilot says the clear communication of ‘Clara,’ meaning, ‘I cannot see the landing device that’s supposed to help me find the aircraft carrier and land safely on it.’ The landing signal officer, the person who is on the aircraft carrier helping us land, said, ‘You’re low,’ which you never want to hear. That’s where we were at night. Obviously, I’m here. We did not crash into the aircraft carrier, but we were about three feet from crashing into the aircraft carrier that night. We didn’t know that until we successfully landed and stopped for the night.”

The landing system tells pilots if they are high, low, left, or right of their target. If they are too low, they will hit the wall — literally the back of the aircraft carrier. If they come in too high, they won’t hit their target, won’t stop, and risk running out of fuel and ending up in the water. “Why do I bring these up? Life changes. When you’re coming out of that low point in life, never stop doing what you’re doing to get out of that low point in life,” Farber said.

Some of his other rules to live by:

• “Clear, concise communication can save your life.”
• “You’re only as good as your next pass. This is sort of the counterpoint of ‘never rest on your laurels.’ You never want to stop improving yourself.”
• “There’s always room for one more at a round table. You are always inclusive. You are always open, welcoming. You are alway willing to make room.”

Farber’s first squadron was the Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 2 “Bounty Hunters,” based at the Naval Air Station in Lemoore, California. He completed a combat deployment aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), providing combat air support during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. He then went to TOPGUN to become a Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor at Strike Fighter Weapon School Pacific in Lemoore. While there, he served a one-year, individual augmentation to the Combined Special Forces-Special Operations Command in Afghanistan.

Upon completion of his tour, Farber went to Naval Postgraduate School and earned a master’s in computer science before heading to Naval Special Warfare SEAL Team Eight as the fires officer. He lateral transferred to Cryptologic Warfare in 2017 and was assigned team lead for the National Mission Team assigned to Cyber National Mission Force. His personal awards include two Defense Meritorious Service medals, an Air Strike medal, three Navy Commendation medals, three Navy Achievement medals, and various unit awards. 

“I gave up flying after 13 years. I wanted to stop being away from my family. I chose to leave my dream career of being a naval aviator to go do my second passion, which was cybersecurity. It got me home every night,”said Farber, who lives in Maryland with his wife, Rebecca, and their four children. “It got me more regular hours, I didn’t have to deploy any more and I got to do some cool stuff. I defended the 2018 election against Russian interference. I defended the 2020 election against Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and North Korean interferences. I was invited to the 2019 elections in the UK to be the liaison back to America for cybersecurity, and I helped them defend their elections from Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.”

He currently serves as a Special Access Program Planner and Special Access Program Control Officer for the U.S. Cyber Command in Fort Meade. Recalling his six-year-old self, sitting in a darkened moving theater and seeing the F-14 Tomcat for the first time, Farber stressed that he is willing to argue with anyone who does not share his belief that it is still the greatest aircraft ever designed. He plans to retire from the Navy in January 2025.