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 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 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."

My uncle got to ride along in a Navy Hornet.  The pilots said when they get pro atheletes, they give them hell, push the plane as hard as they can so they can watch guys like Charles Barkley or Michael Jordan get poured out of the cockpit.

[rofl2] Outstanding. Thanks for posting that.

I've long wondered how I'd do in a high-performance jet.  I've never gotten motion sickness in my life, and I've been in a lot of big roller coasters, and have logged about 30 hours in a C-150.  I wonder if I'd get sick in a fighter jet.

I would so love to take a trip in any military aircraft.  

For manuevers, I want to fly in an F-15
for some target practice, I'll take a seat as gunner in an A-10!

[lol]...milk duds...[lol]

I'd sooo love to go up in an F16.  Or an F15.  Or an F14.  The F14 goes to the top of the list if ride includes taking off and landing on a carrier.  [:D]

Given what those guys can make those planes do, I wouldn't be surprised if I puked.  But it'd be fun.

What is a C-150?

Cessan 150

lol!  Cessna !!

A donation of a few $k to your local Rep. supposedly can get you into the cockpit with the Blue Angels.  That's what I heard.  Have no idea if it's true but the ride is anything but the smooth and graceful aerobatics that you see from the ground.  An F/A-18 can load 6 G's in a split second and the change in velocity is just as violent.  Example: Cut the throttle in level flight from full AB@500 knots to idle and you are getting some serious whiplash like effects on your ass.  Now imagine pulling even 4-5 G's and doing similar.  Lights out.

 Famous people do have all the fun.  The guy from Home Improvement flew with the Blue Angels as well as Bo Jackson and a miriad of other celebs and journalists.  Redmember Katie Couric in the F-16 IIRC?  I think she puked.  There was a 48 Hours bit on Navy fighter pilots about 10 years ago.  The journalist went up off a CVN in an F-14 did some mock air combat and puked.  I don't get motion sickness but I'm sure I would puke.  I imagine it's like sea sickness you get conditioned to it and it goes away over time and experience although I never have been sea sick.  I thought there were a few pilots here, I know there's at least one USN here somewhere.  An Ensign I think.  Forget his screen name, maybe I chose not to remember since he's an officer, teehee!

I forwarded this story to my father without hesitation. He got a courtesy ride in an F15 when he was stationed at Tyndall AFB. I took off school to watch him take off, after a near 90 degree climb from the end of the runway I never saw him for the next hour. He was over the gulf having the best ride of his life. Thanks for that story.

I believe I would fast for 2 or 3 days before letting one of those jocks take me up.  The first time I went up in a glider, the pilot pulled some acrobatic stunts on me without warning me, and damn near made me piss my pants.  I started drooling pretty bad, but never lost my lunch.

Hard to imagine the same thing at 6 Gs.

In any vehicle doing lots of unusual motions, it is much worse to be the passenger than the driver. Not very fair of the pilots. :-)

Interesting thread.  I got a similar ride in an F-4, long, long ago.  I never got sick or even nauseous.  It was such a rush to be doing aerobatics in a high performance jet, I do not even remember thinking about getting sick.  We pulled 6.2 g's as I recall coming out of a loop, but I never blacked out.  The "G-suit" did its job.  Heck of a ride.

Very funny!  Thanks!

Wonder if they taught him to grunt.  Probably wouldn't have helped though.

Trust me, C-130's and C-5's are not going to give you a woody.

CW

The Navy occasionally gives familiarization flights in combat aircraft for VIPs.  About a year ago, a Surface Warfare captain (O-6), then in command of an AEGIS cruiser, was invited to take a ride in the rear seat of an F-14D Tomcat.  Ostensibly, these rides, like any A/C ride for non-aviators, or sub rides for non subbies, are for cross-pollinization of awareness between the major warface communities.  The ride took place at NAS Fallon, Nevada.

The lucky captain was given the pre-flight briefing, suited up and introduced to his lieutenant (O-3) aviator pilot.  They launched without problem and the pilot proceeded to take the skimmer up for some maneuvers designed to elicit the reactions described in the thread story.

At some point in the flight, when the pilot went inverted, the captain in the back seat, who apparently was not strapped in tightly enough (for him anyway), and fearing he was falling, instinctively grabbed something to "hold on to" and maintain his butt in the seat.  UNFORTUNATELY, he instinctively grabbed the black and yellow striped loop handle between his legs.  When he did, the aircraft ejection system worked exactly as designed:  The canopy blew away and the captain was ejected successfully.

Since they were at high altitude when the captain ejected himself, he must have had plenty of time to ponder his actions as he floated down to earth.  The captain landed without further mishap and waited patiently for the rescue helo to locate his EPERB and pick him up.

I would have given my eye teeth to have been able to listen in on the conversation when that pilot contacted the Fallon tower to report his guest had just exited the Tomcat.  

Uh, dry heaves are much worse than productive ones.   The fasting idea sounds good on paper but in reality it'll just make you enjoy life even less.


If I had the opportunity to jump in an F16 but was promised by God Himself that I'd puke my toenails up and have to be carried out of the cockpit in a stretcher,  I'd jump in that cockpit after making sure I had a good supply of large ziplock Hefty Bags handy.

Generally speaking, I'm not susceptible to motion sickness these days.   That wasn't always true, but these days...well, the last time I ever puked was 1975.  Literally.

Not that there's any real connection to the real thing, but recently I got to "fly" one of Lockheed-Martin's high fidelity F16 cockpit simulators at a trade show....twice.   As I'm a dedicated flight simmer and even dumped 300 bucks on a throttle and joystick setup that's an extremely faithful replica of the F16 throttle and stick,   I felt right at home and flew the simulator like I'd done it before.   Not that this would necessarily be the same thing as the real deal,  but it was good enough a simulation that you could and would "feel" the moves you were making.   Some people COULD make themselves sick in that simulator from the visual cues.   I just got into it and had a very, very good time, including a couple of perfect T&G's and a textbook landing or two, which drew compliments from the Air Force Major who was in charge of the sim.   He actually asked me how many hours I had in the F16, to which I replied (truthfully), "1500...simulated.  None in the real thing."

That got a smile from him.   He know the sim I fly, Falcon 4.0.  (Patched and updated to current)  

He told me that I had a good enough handle on the sim that I could probably fly the real thing well enough to land safely without breaking anything.    I liked hearing that!




CJ

Talk about bringing back an unpleasant memory!!

My first flight in a small plane was in the service in 1967 in a dinky (and incredibly low performance) O-1 Birddog being flown by an Air Force FAC.

I hadn’t eaten anything, but gastric juices still came up. [:X*]

If I’d had a parachute, I think I would’ve tried to jump out of the plane.

Which would have been an incredibly bad idea since the FAC had just brought in a couple of F-100’s who had put bombs and napalm on the folks on the ground.  (Flying through the smoke plumes was a major cause of my problems, together with all the circling and diving to fire smoke rockets!)

Still, I [b]really[/b] wanted out of that plane!!

However, after doing this a few more times, it didn’t bother me at all.

Good one The_B_S!
[lol]

My CO told me that story a couple of weeks ago. Laughed then too.

In Vietnam I "hitched" a ride on one of those Hughes Aircraft 500's,what..a .loach?This one was armed with what looked like m-60 machineguns,mounted on the outside with ammo boxes in the rear and feed chutes.The pilot said"strap your gear down in the back and buckel your seatbelt real tight."That was a warning.I had about a 40 minute ride through stream bottoms,zipping over hilltops,real rough ride nap of earth shit.I puked once out the side(was in left front seat)didn't get any on me.Jeasus what a ride!MY KNEES WERE WEAK!the W.O. flying this little ariel sports car was laughing his ass off all the time while I was white knuckling the seat belt.I have never seen the ground move by that quickly and closely while flying up,down,sideways and LOW.After we set down I felt like buttstroking the Idiot,but quickly was overcome by feelings of relief at being alive.Still...it was one hell of a ride.    

I grew up in the Mississippi Delta and got offered a ride with a crop duster.  It weren't no F-14, but it hd me throwing up like a super model.

Since we've gotten to personal stories, here's my story from another thread today.  I felt bad for a day after this.

cmjohnson, you have Falcon 4.0? How is it? Doesn't it come with like a 500pg. flight manual?

I have seen the photo of that Tomcat with the rear ejection seat and faux RIO gone. I was laughing my ass off.

I remember reading that in SI when it was first published......what 5 years ago.

His reaction was pretty much the same as Emmit Smiths. He got a ride with the Blue Angels. When they did a flyby at Valley Ranch where the Cowboys practice Chad Hennings (flew A-10's in the AF) mooned the Navy boys.

May be low tech and old school but I want a ride in a B-17 in the worst way.

I belive the seats in a fighter are tied together. If one ejects, it ejects both. This way a crewman can eject the other crewman if he is incapacitated.


Aviator

Oh man that story was hillarious... and yes I was laughing before Milk Duds...

[lol]

OMFG!!  [LOL]

Well, it's the best jet combat flight sim, PERIOD. Always has been since its initial release, and still is today even though it hasn't been in print for three years now.  The sim community has kept it totally fresh and up to date and it's so much better now than what's on the original CD-Rom that the only reason to own the original is because you have to have that basis in order to apply the progressive patches and add-ons that keep this sim at the leading edge of state of the art from a perspective of hardcore REALISM.  

You might get fancier eye candy than F4 as we simmers call it, but you won't get anything else that's even CLOSE to as accurate in terms of performance and functionality as compared to the real plane.

Yeah, the original manual is pretty big.  It's about an inch and a quarter thick with half sized pages.    And the major patches and add-ons have their own manuals, some of which are also of considerable size.

Although it hasn't been in print for three years, it's nothing to find an original disk with manual on ebay at just about any given time, and for a fair price.

But, if you get it, the only good way to think of it is to consider the original disc's contents to be only a seed.    You'd then pretty much HAVE to go to frugal's world (www.frugalsworld.com) and start out by reading the complete install guide on the forums,  and then begin downloading the essential patches in proper order and then installing them.   There are several.

There are a lot of optional packages you can add on,  but it's best to start out pretty simple.  Just get what's most recommended for performance's sake, to start with.


If you get serious about this sim,  next you'll want to dump 300 bucks or so on a Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS joystick and throttle set.   It's really the only setup for a very serious flight simmer.   And now that you have it,  you may want to get the joystick and throttle upgraded with superior electronics and hardware,  which will cost several hundred dollars.



It's the best flight sim, by far, at least for realism,  but getting it set up properly is a bit laborious and not all the packages are very user friendly.


CJ

Not eating is the quickest way to get airsick...

I got that chance January of this year! My Father-in-law and I went to Florida to watch Columbia launch (RIP Columbia). While we were there we caught a 20 minute hop on the Collings Foundation's B-17 "Nine O Nine". What a thrill!

A ride in a jet fighter would be worth upchucking all over myself definitely!!!

Cheers,
Chris

Here is a shot of the bomber on the tarmac...

[img]http://photos.ar15.com/ImageGallery/Attachments/DownloadAttach.asp?iImageUnq=20760[/img]

Here is a shot looking out of the starboard waist-gunner position several hundred feet above Florida...

[img]http://photos.ar15.com/ImageGallery/Attachments/DownloadAttach.asp?iImageUnq=20761[/img]

This shot is from the port window just aft of the port nose gunner position (right above the nose-art).

[img]http://photos.ar15.com/ImageGallery/Attachments/DownloadAttach.asp?iImageUnq=20762[/img]

I effin hate you... [>Q]

[devil]  [nana]   [devil]

The [url=http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/a-10/a-102.html]A-10[/url] only has ONE seat. The pilot is the gunner. There are NO two seat A-10's. Unless you're taking about an attack helicopter like the [url=http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/apache/apache2.html]AH-64 Apache[/url] whis does have two seats. The gunner sits in the front seat, the pilot sits in the back seat.

You could always tie someone to the nose and call it the 'gunners position'....

They could always hang him from one of the A-10 hardpoints (the weapon mounts on the underside of the wing) while he's holding an AR and a 100 rd magazine. Just hope the pilot doesn't hit the weapon release for the wrong hardpoint. Another option would be to hitch a saddle around the fuselage behind the cockpit for him.

Actually, there's a photo somewhere of some guy hanging from a hardpoint with a handgun. I think the aircraft was an F-16 but it's been a while since I saw it and I can't remember the exact details.

[img]http://www.a-10.org/photos/Photos97444/2seater2.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.a-10.org/photos/Photos97444/2seater.jpg[/img]

[;D]

[img]http://photos.ar15.com/WS_Content/ImageGallery/Attachments/DownloadAttach.asp?sAccountUnq=1640&iGalleryUnq=98&iImageUnq=20764[/img]

In 1984, I got to ride in Fat Albert on a JATO burn.  Yes, I got a woody!  (Thank you, Marines!)
[img]http://www.strikenet.js.mil/pma242/media/photos/jato_fatalbert01.jpg[/img]

No4MK1 I hate you too. [:)]  I had a chance to tour that bird back in the mid 90's. I was shocked at how cramped it was inside and how thin the skin on it was. You are one lucky dog!

Actually, The ejection settings can be set by the pilot to have each crewman eject only himself, or be able to eject both crewmen, "command ejection" IIRC.  I seriously doubt any pilot would give a non-trained VIP command ejection ability.

Jack

I’ve never flown in a fighter, but I have ridden in the back seat of an OV-10 Bronco a few times.

My recollection is that if the back seater ejected in an OV-10, this had no effect on the pilot.  (Though a pilot once told me that in this instance he’d probably have to eject too, since the first ejection would probably throw debris into the engines.  I admit I never quite saw how this was likely.)

However, if the pilot pulled the ejection ring, the back seater was automatically ejected first, followed by the pilot.  

This made imminent sense to me since, not being a pilot myself, I saw no particular merit in staying with the plane if the pilot ejected!!  [:D]

I have no idea if these settings could be changed.

The retired fighter pilots I work with say exactly the same thing.  They discuss how they will set the ejection selector switch before launch.  The options are pretty basic, since the F-14 Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) can't fly the airplane if the pilot ejects.  Regardless of the selections, he always goes first...or alone.  I'm not sure about all the permutations, but I do know that in one case the pilot can remain behind.  IF both go, they go in sequence, to prevent the ejection seat rockets from the first guy out from turning the other into a crispy critter.

Ok ARndog, you got me. It turns out that there was ONE two seat A-10 built, which I'd never heard about, and an A-10 pilot told me that no two-seat versions exist. The single two-seater was a test prototype for an all weather night attack version of the A-10 which never went into production. Here's what they say about it at www.warthogpen.com

"[b]In 1978 Fairchild Republic (FR) reveled plans for a night attack, adverse weather two-seat A-10 in the hopes of increasing sale of the Warthog to the USAF. This self-funded project would show the increased capabilities possible with the addition of a radar pod, flir pod, and a second crewmember to help with the workload and operate the complex systems. The Air Force donated the first pre-production DT&E aircraft for modification by FR into the two-seat NAWs A-10.

Let me explain and clarify something here at the beginning because, I have heard rumors and "old wives tales" of two, three, and even up to five two-seat A-10s being built. There was ONE, and only ONE two-seat A-10 ever built and its tail number was/is 73-1664!

In the end the AF was not interested in a night attack A-10 nor a two-seat trainer. There are lots of rumors and opinions on why the AF decided against the two-seat A-10 but when all is said and done, they did, and the program went dormant in 1980.

The only two seat A-10 now sits at Edwards AFB CA. awaiting restoration at which time it will be placed in the Edwards aviation museum.[/b]"

So it does exist, but it's not in flying condition.