A RIDE IN AN F-14D TOMCAT
Now 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. 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."
Rick Reilly, Sports Illustrated
Now 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. 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."
Rick Reilly, Sports Illustrated
A Ride in an F-14D Tomcat
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