1994-2002 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup
I got this in an e-mail today... very funny.
On a Wing and a Prayer, by Rick Reilly
This message is for America's most famous athletes: Someday you
may be invited to fly in the back-seat of one of your country's most
powerful fighter jets. Many of you already have -- John Elway, John
Stockton, Tiger Woods to name a few. If you get this opportunity, let me
urge you, with the greatest sincerity....move to Guam instead. Change your
name. Fake your own death. Whatever you do, do not go. Why do I say this?
Because I know. The U.S. Navy invited me to try it. I was thrilled. I was
pumped. I was stupid!
I should've known when they told me my pilot would be Chip (Biff)
King of fighter Squadron 213 at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach. Whatever you're thinking a Top Gun named Chip (Biff) King looks like, triple it. He's about six-foot, tan, ice-blue eyes, wavy surfer hair, finger-crippling handshake -- the kind of man who wrestles dyspeptic
alligators in his leisure time. If you see this man, run the other way.
Fast. Biff King was born to fly. His father, Jack King, was for years the
voice of NASA missions. ("T-minus 15 seconds and counting...." Remember?).
Chip would charge neighborhood kids a quarter each to hear his dad. Jack
would wake up from naps surrounded by nine-year-olds waiting for him to
say, "We have a liftoff."
Biff was to fly me in an F-14D Tomcat, a ridiculously powerful $60
million weapon with nearly as much thrust as weight, not unlike Colin
Montgomerie. I was worried about getting airsick, so the night before the
flight I asked Biff if there was something I should eat the next morning.
"Bananas," he said. "For the potassium?" I asked. "No," Biff said, "because they taste about the same coming up as they do going down."
The next morning, out on the tarmac, I had on my flight suit with my
name sewn over the left breast. (No call sign -- like Crash or Sticky or
Lead foot - but, still, very cool.) I carried my helmet in the crook of my
arm, as Biff had instructed. If ever in my life I had a chance to nail
Nicole Kidman, that was it.
A fighter pilot named "Psycho" gave me a safety briefing and then
fastened me into my ejection seat, which, when employed, would "egress" me
out of the plane at such a velocity that I would be immediately knocked
unconscious from the G-forces. Just as I was thinking about aborting the
flight, the canopy closed over me, and Biff gave the ground crew a
thumbs-up. In minutes we were firing nose up at 600 mph. We leveled out and then canopy-rolled over another F-14. Those 20 minutes were the rush of my life.
Unfortunately, the ride lasted 80 minutes. It was like being on the roller coaster at Six Flags. Only without rails. We did barrel rolls, snap rolls, loops, yanks and banks. We dived, rose high and dived again,
sometimes with a vertical velocity of 10,000 feet per whatever. We chased
another F-14, and it chased us. We broke the speed of sound. Sea was sky
and sky was sea. Flying at 200 feet we did 90-degree turns at 550 mph,
creating a G-force of 6.5, which is to say I felt as if 6.5 times my body
weight was smashing against me.
And, I egressed the bananas. I egressed the pizza from the night
before. And the lunch before that. I egressed a box of Milk Duds from the
sixth grade. I made Linda Blair look polite. Because of the G's, I was
egressing stuff that did not even want to be egressed. I went through not
one airsick bag, but two. Biff said I passed out. Twice. I was coated in
sweat. At one point, as we were coming in upside down in a banked curve on
a mock bombing target and the G's were flattening me like a tortilla and I
was in and out of consciousness, I realized I was the first person in
history to "throw down".
I used to know cool. Cool was Elway throwing a touchdown pass, or
Norman making a five-iron bite. But now I really know cool. Cool is guys
like Biff, men with cast-iron stomachs and Freon nerves. I wouldn't go up
there again for Derek Jeter's black book, but I'm glad Biff does every day, and for less a year than a rookie reliever makes in a home stand.
A week later, when the spins finally stopped, Biff called. He said
he and the fighter pilots had the perfect call sign for me. He said he'd send it on a patch for my flight suit.
What is it? I asked.
"Two Bags."
posted by 12.220.171...
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
