this one is just too good not to pass it along.
Enjoy.

Icebear, working on trip report as we speak...


-----Original Message-----
>
> 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 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, 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.  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 banked curve on a mock bombing target, the G's were
> flattening me like 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.
>
_______________________________________________

--- Rachel's Little NET2FIDO Gate v 0.9.9.8 Alpha