Off-topic - one for Goo and the flyboys

[Gnr527]

In the past I have put a friend onto Goo's posts

He sent me this one!

http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/ajc/swf/bl...blueangels.swf

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[goo]

an article from sports illustrated on the tomcat,
...
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. hahahaha!!!

"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-feet, 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."
...
the old goo at the top of a loop in a glider
...
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/11/95...g?v=1139348182

[John Sukey (Deceased)]

Ride in an F100F
Select full oxygen. takeoff was just like a commercial jet but the climb to altitude was straight up. only manuevers were a barrel roll and an immelman. Never got sick. However another guy from the supply squadron barfed in the cockpit BEFORE the pilot released the brakes at the end of the runway
When my turn for a ride in an F16 came up, I passed on it since I was retiring in a couple of days and thought the next in line deserved it more than I did.

[Steven Martin]

In 1991 I flew in the P-51 "Ho Hun" in Mesa Az. $300/40 minutes. Bob, the pilot started off with a split-S ( 1 1/2 rolls then down to the ground in one hell of a hurry), loops , snap rolls, vertical banked turns around a mountain top, and on and on. The best was after the split-S, he pulled out at something like 50' and went full speed across the desert. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING sounds like a V-12 Packard Merlin freebasing fuel at over 400 mph. No puking on my part and I was forced to ride along for an extra 10 minutes (bummer) till he got the guy in the tower to respond. Bob turned to me and said " he must be in taking a s**t". When I got back and had to get out, I was immediately ready to go again. What's better than a Mustang?

[Dan Wilson]

I remember every summer we would get some pathetic little cadet twits from the AF academy doing their summer "pester people that are busy working" programs.

We would load a plane full of them (this is when I was stationed at Kirtland) and would do a daytime low (sorta) level, I mean hell - we would stay at 1000 AGL and stay about 200 indicated and they would still puke all over themselves and whine that we were flying "bouncy" on purpose to make em barf. They never believed us when we told them we usually do the same profile at 200 feet and over 250 knots.

Never got sick in the plane, however there were some early mornings following late nights that I actually thought about it LOL

Dan

[John L. Lucci]

In 1991 I flew in the P-51 "Ho Hun" in Mesa Az. $300/40 minutes. Bob, the pilot started off with a split-S ( 1 1/2 rolls then down to the ground in one hell of a hurry), loops , snap rolls, vertical banked turns around a mountain top, and on and on. The best was after the split-S, he pulled out at something like 50' and went full speed across the desert. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING sounds like a V-12 Packard Merlin freebasing fuel at over 400 mph. No puking on my part and I was forced to ride along for an extra 10 minutes (bummer) till he got the guy in the tower to respond. Bob turned to me and said " he must be in taking a s**t". When I got back and had to get out, I was immediately ready to go again. What's better than a Mustang?

Sex; however, I would have to say that's neck and neck.