> On a Wing and a Prayer by Rick Reilly (Note: Rick
> Reilly writes for Sports Illustrated)
>
> 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 offighter 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 from the G-forces.  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 minutes.  It was
> like being on the roller coaster at Six Flags.  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.
>
> 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 Greg 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 fighter pilots 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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