Two Bags

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
humour is seriously 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 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 neighbourhood 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 levelled 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.

And  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.”
God  Bless America

I don’t know, I had built up such an anticipation for jumping that it was a bit of a let down.  I was so buisy concentrating on what I was supposed to do I forgot to enjoy it.

That’s probably been said since the first time some one said “I have an Idea, it’s called a ‘parachute’”