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Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board
Re: Update from Guam
Posted By: andre fourrier-Louisiana In Response To: Re: Update from Guam (andre fourrier-Louisiana)
Date: Thursday, 3 February 2005, at 10:45 a.m.
> >"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-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, 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."
> >
>
>
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