Way O/T--but here's a funny story I got from my buddy doing aircraft carrier duty out in the Persian Gulf:
Finally, truth in the media.
This guy writes for Sports Illustrated.
On a Wing and a Prayer, by Rick Reilly
Now this message for America's most famous athletes: Someday you may be
invited to fly in the backseat 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, 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. 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."
Don't you dare tell Nicole. |
