bigr
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2001
- Posts
- 142
This guy writes for Sports Illustrated and I think this article is a hoot!
Thought y'all might enjoy this one, it made me laugh a few times...been
there done that!
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,
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."
Don't you dare tell Nicole.
Thought y'all might enjoy this one, it made me laugh a few times...been
there done that!
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,
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."
Don't you dare tell Nicole.
Deninitely. Nice.
