OT,
This put a smile on my face......hope it does the same for you.
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. If you aren't laughing out loud by the time
>you get to "Milk Duds," your sense of humor is broken.
>
>"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, snap 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."
> |
