To: justlurking
I got this in a email last week. I can't vouch for it's authenticity. It needs some formatting help...
> 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 you
> 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 dysleptic
> 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 never thought would 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."
>
>
>
>
24 posted on
02/02/2004 5:12:24 PM PST by
tubebender
(Don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see...)
To: tubebender
Looks authentic to me, I knew Biff from some exercises.
26 posted on
02/02/2004 7:30:25 PM PST by
Pukin Dog
(Sans Reproache)
To: tubebender
ROFL!
27 posted on
02/02/2004 11:38:34 PM PST by
Ernest_at_the_Beach
(The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States - and war is what they got!!!!)
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