Separating the men from the boys

Below is an article written by Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated.
He details his experiences when given the opportunity to fly in a
F-14 Tomcat.

"Now this message 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
the opportunity, let me urge you, with the greatest sincerity,
Move to Guam. Change your name. Fake your own death! Whatever you
do,
do not go.

I know. The U.S. Navy invited me to try it. I was thrilled. I was
pumped. I was toast! 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 Leadfoot 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, this 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.

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. It was like being on the roller coaster at Six
Flags Over Hell. Only without rails. We did barrel rolls, sap
rolls, loops, yanks and banks. We dived, rose and dived again,
sometimes with a vertical velocity of 10,000 feet per minute. 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, thereby
approximating life as Mrs. Colin Montgomerie.

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 fighters had the perfect call sign for me. Said
he'd send it on a patch for my flight suit.

What is it? I asked.

"Two Bags."

AMEN !

rmoore- Flying at 200 feet we did 90-degree
turns
at 550 mph BRBR


Oopps. I'm sure he meant 500 feet....
P. C. Chisholm
CDR, USN(ret.)
Old Phart Phormer Phantom, Turkey, Viper, Scooter and Combat Buckeye Phlyer

On Sat, 01 Nov 2003 02:46:44 GMT, Robert Moore
wrote:


Below is an article written by Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated.
He details his experiences when given the opportunity to fly in a
F-14 Tomcat.


Reminds me of the Jerry Reed F-16 monologue.




***********************************************
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&
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On 11/1/03 9:05 AM, in article ,
"Pechs1" wrote:

rmoore- Flying at 200 feet we did 90-degree
turns
at 550 mph BRBR


Oopps. I'm sure he meant 500 feet....
P. C. Chisholm
CDR, USN(ret.)
Old Phart Phormer Phantom, Turkey, Viper, Scooter and Combat Buckeye Phlyer

What's wrong with 200 feet?

"Doug \"Woody\" and Erin Beal" wrote in
:

On 11/1/03 9:05 AM, in article
, "Pechs1"
wrote:

rmoore- Flying at 200 feet we did 90-degree
turns
at 550 mph BRBR


Oopps. I'm sure he meant 500 feet....
P. C. Chisholm
CDR, USN(ret.)
Old Phart Phormer Phantom, Turkey, Viper, Scooter and Combat Buckeye
Phlyer

What's wrong with 200 feet?

Nothing at all. On 2 July 1971, I was standing on the roof of the tower
at NAS Broomstick and watched the #7 Blue Angels F-4 make a pass around
the tower, right to left, @ 80 deg bank, over the grass and I was looking
down on the right wingtip.

Dave in San Diego

--
-
"For once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes
turned skyward;
For there you have been, and there you long to return."
Leonardo da Vinci

"Pechs1" wrote in message
...
rmoore- Flying at 200 feet we did 90-degree
turns
at 550 mph BRBR


Oopps. I'm sure he meant 500 feet....

I've done more than a couple of TARPS hops when some legs of the mission
were down at 200 ft AGL. My first flight with Hunyack on the boat was the
standard Hunyack-1 arrival. At about 50 miles out, we descended down to 200
ft over the water then he pushed it down to about 50 feet at about 550
knots. That's how we came into the break. If it were anybody else, CAG would
have pitched him off the fantail afterwards, but because it was Hunyack,
nothing of consequence (that a lowly LTJG would know about) ever happened.

__!_!__
Gizmo

"Doug "Woody" and Erin Beal" wrote in message
...
On 11/1/03 9:05 AM, in article
,
"Pechs1" wrote:

rmoore- Flying at 200 feet we did 90-degree
turns
at 550 mph BRBR


Oopps. I'm sure he meant 500 feet....
P. C. Chisholm
CDR, USN(ret.)
Old Phart Phormer Phantom, Turkey, Viper, Scooter and Combat Buckeye
Phlyer

What's wrong with 200 feet?


Nothing! 20, 200, 2,000, 20,000 feet. Its all the same as long as you don't
bump into anything.

Red Rider

Dave in San Diego wrote:
Nothing at all. On 2 July 1971, I was standing on the roof of the tower
at NAS Broomstick and watched the #7 Blue Angels F-4 make a pass around
the tower, right to left, @ 80 deg bank, over the grass and I was looking
down on the right wingtip.

That would have been around the time that J.D. Davis was flying No. 7. Got
a ride with him once. Unforgettable.

--
John Miller
My email address: domain, n4vu.com; username, jsm

The whole of life is futile unless you consider it as a sporting
proposition.

Doug- What's wrong with 200 feet? BRBR


Welll, been a while since I've been in and I have been known to fly less than
500 ft AGL on occasion but isn't the OPNAV min for non combat ops 500 feet??
Was when I was flyin'...Lower for the A-G guys that completed a 'step down'
program?? This was a F-14, VF-213...
P. C. Chisholm
CDR, USN(ret.)
Old Phart Phormer Phantom, Turkey, Viper, Scooter and Combat Buckeye Phlyer