Bananas & Milk Duds

This is an article written by Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated detailing his experiences when given the opportunity to fly in an F-14 Tomcat. If you aren't laughing out loud by the time you get to 'Milk Duds', your sense of humor 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 our 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! What ever you do. Don't 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 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 gettin 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 Leaadfoot. 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 unconcious.Just as I was thinking about aborting the fllight, 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. Unfortunatley, 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 boldy 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 six grade.I made Linda blair look polite. Because of G's, I was egressing stuff that I 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 conciousness, 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 agian for Dereck 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 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."

Replies

- John (Blue Eagle) Maddalena > Tim Gulliford August 1, 2008 at 8:07am
  
  I really don't know, you know they kept all of us in the dark. They did give us a pill one time and a extra month of hazardous duty pay ($55.00). Told us it would work or we wouldn't have young'ns. Well I have 5 young'ns. I've tried to pull it up on the computer but no luck, back in the day the called it all top secret, shhhhhh.
  - Tim Gulliford > John (Blue Eagle) Maddalena August 2, 2008 at 2:54pm
    
    Now imagine if you were not able to have kids because of that pill. Nasa could have refined that pill to be the male birth control then market it. Then all the money made could have funded NASA.
    Just a thought.
Tim Gulliford July 31, 2008 at 7:21pm

I did not know such a program existed. That is really cool to be able to do what you did.
So, how many bags did you go through?
Tim Gulliford July 31, 2008 at 3:14pm

Boy, I wish I had that experience. The closest thing to that were the flight simulators that I was lucky enough to be able to get into from time to time.

Now, my PC Flight Sims (Combat) are all that I have... :( lol
Douglas Karr July 30, 2008 at 6:33pm

Awesome. "Throw down". I'd still love to try it, though!
Tim Gulliford July 29, 2008 at 5:51pm

He, he...Very funny.

"I made Linda blair look polite. Because of G's, I was egressing stuff that I never thought would be egressed." LOL...This cracked me up on top of the milk duds.

Good Post.
- Stick > Tim Gulliford November 23, 2012 at 12:40pm
  
  I don't know how many times I've seen/read that...and I will start chuckling..and my wife asks "What's so funny??"send it to me....I told her she would NEVER understand

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