On a Wing and a Prayer, by Rick Reilly
Posted by: clean-hewmor <clean-hewmor@...>
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.
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 anything, 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."