Straight up, up UP!!

joelontheroad in back seat of navy F/A-18 June 6, 1991

By Joel Thurtell

A reporter for The New York Times got lucky.

C.J. Chivers put his bragging rights into the dateline of his January 16, 2012 Times story:

INSIDE STRIKE FIGHTER VENGEANCE 13

Chivers got one of those rare chances to hitch a ride in a US Navy fighter jet, and you can tell by the way Chivers wrote the story — all out, on afterburner — that the ride affected him.

joelontheroad in F/A-18 cockpit before flight

I know how it feels.

When I drove back to the office on June 6, 1991 from Willow Run Airport, you would have thought I had two General Electric jet engines thrusting me down Interstate 94.

What a rush!

Chivers describes flying at 620 mph over the hills of Afghanistan.

The terrain was not quite so exotic for me. But my pilot hit 650 — no sound barrier breaking please!

In those days, most F/A-18s were single-seaters, with the pilot both flying and running weapons systems. Today’s F/A-18F Super Hornets, it appears from Chivers’ story, are two-seaters with a weapons operator in the back seat.

Or a reporter.

For the air show at Willow Run in June 1991, one of the flight of Hornets had a second seat to accommodate a crew chief who flew in with the lead pilot to look check out safety issues at the airport.

The Navy was not about to waste that second seat. Offers were sent to area newspapers, TV and radio stations. The Navy would give one ride each to a reporter from print, radio and TV outlets.

My editor asked me if I wanted to go.

Kidding?

Here, reprinted with permission of the Detroit Free Press,  are my impressions from the most spectacular ride I’ve ever had:

Headline: JET PILOT PUSHES PASSENGER TO THE LIMIT

Sub-Head:

Byline:  JOEL THURTELL FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Pub-Date: 6/7/1991

Memo:

Correction:

Text: Afterburners blasting, the blue and yellow jet lifted its long, curved nose
and shot straight up into the sky.

“That’s what you’ll be doing,” somebody said. “Nervous?”

Hell, yes, I was nervous.  At 3 a.m. I’d popped out of sleep thinking:
Today I ride a Navy F/A18 Hornet attack fighter, doing stunts the Navy’s Blue
Angels aerobatic team will perform this weekend at Willow Run Airport.
I  found my pilot, Marine Capt. Ken Switzer, nonchalantly munching a roast
beef sandwich, onion rings and french fries. My peanut butter and jelly
sandwich was still in my car. For good reason.
Minutes  later, the canopy locks over our heads and we roar down the
runway. Nose almost straight up. Thirty-two thousand pounds of push directly
under my back. All I see is clear blue sky.
And here come  the G’s — all five of them. I’ve been told what to do so I
won’t black out.
“Stand by, stand by. Pull!”
I grab two steel grips beside me on the canopy, lift forward and yell.
“Haaaaaaaaaaaa!”
I strain against the gravity that forces me backward. We level off.
Hey, that wasn’t bad. Bad?  What a ride!
Over the heads of cows and chickens in Jackson County, Switzer holds an
impromptu  air show. Nose up, then let her fall.
I float in my straps, weightless.
“Zero-G,” says Switzer. “That’s how the astronauts feel all the time.”
Nose up, pressure hard on whole body. Cheeks  sag. Lips pull down.
Pressure, pressure. I strain, pull myself up by the handles and shout.
Haaaaaahhhhh!
“That was six G’s,” Switzer said. “Want more?”
“No, thanks.”
“Want to go  fast?”
You bet. At 10,000 or so feet, we breeze along at 650 mph beside fluffy
white clouds with flat gray bellies.
Suddenly, all is white. We pop through the white roof. The jet skims along
with its belly in vapor. Our heads ride a few feet above the fluff.
We speed up, tipping sharply to race around a cloud. Then the G’s hit.
Pull! Haaahhh! A grayness sneaks through the left side  of the canopy. As we
straighten out, I feel euphoric, as if waking from a pleasant dream. Gravity
was pushing blood from my brain, but I didn’t black out.
Nose down, we slice through clouds, dropping  2,000 feet in seconds.
“We fly upside down a lot at air shows, and we do it fairly low,” Switzer
says.
Oh, boy. I knew he’d do this. Knew it. But not this low. At 2,500 feet and
400 mph, he  flips the Hornet on its back. I dangle from my seat straps. The
canopy’s inches below my face. Below, light green squares and black blobs —
fields and woods — flash toward us and disappear.
My  shoulder pushes the straps. Up is down. Or down is up.
Over the intercom, Switzer explains that carrier planes like the F/A18 shed
speed for landing by making a steep, rolling turn.
Five G’s  shove me back and keep shoving.  From somewhere far off I hear
myself. Haaahhh!!
Canopy and sky vanish. Darkness falls over me. My blackout lasts only a
split second. Fragments of light and dark reassemble into a picture of the
sky. My mind seeps back into the cockpit, reuniting with my body.
Going back to Detroit, I have little patience for the mortals creeping
along I-94. I swerve and  pass them as if they are gray-bellied clouds.

Caption:

Willow Run Airport fire fighter Al Lake hoses down jet fuel
from around a Blue Angels F/A18 Hornet on Wednesday.
Walt Pierce of Sebring, Fla.,  wipes grease from the belly of
his Stearman N2S, which will be used in this weekend’s air
show.

Illustration:  PHOTO JOEL THURTELL

Edition: METRO FINAL

Section:  NWS

Page: 1B

Keywords: ; AIRPLANE;  DFREEPRESS;  JOEL THURTELL;  WILLOW RUN AIRPORT

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