Peter Aleshire - Eye of the Viper: The Making of an F-16 Pilot

WANT TO PULL SOME GS? asks Major Jamie Scofield, a combat-veteran fighter jock who normally trains fresh-meat rookies at Luke Air Force Base, but who tomorrow will afterburn my media butt into the Wild Blue Yonderstrapped nervously into the backseat of a training-adopted F-16 with 25,000 pounds of thrust devoted to revealing whether I have even a dollop of the right stuff.

Pull some gs. Sounds harmless.

But hes talking about a turn so sharp that my body will seem to weigh 1,800 poundsincluding about 100 pounds worth of head and helmet should I want to turn my head and take in the upside-down scenery. And if I forget to tighten every muscle in my body and gasp for air once every three seconds in the turn, the blood will drain out of my head and Ill pass out like a putz. Curly wants to pull 9 gsthe limit set by the shipboard computer, which worries constantly about pilots passing out and flying their silly selves into the ground.

Oh God, I think. Please no. Im gonna whimper. Faint. Vomit.

Absolutely, I say. Sounds like fun.

After all, for years Ive secretly wanted to take this ultimate test of macho, so I can be like a fighter pilot. After all, theyre real men, oozing the right stuff. They know itmuch as they try not to swagger. I know itmuch as I try not to whimper. Thats why the lantern-jawed fighter is always the hero of the movie, while the reporters scramble around in sweating, squealing little scrums. Besides, my dad was a test pilot in World War II, and all my life I noticed how he sometimes tilted his head to watch the cloud-scudded sky with a certain fond yearning. I wondered what he saw.

But now that the event looms, I just dont want to puke or pass out.

Curly made it sound easya lark. Yeah. Easy for him. Hes got thousands of hours in the air, including combat missions over Bosnia and Iraq. One night over Bosnia, while he was flying around with four F-16s trying to get SAM missile batteries to shoot at them so they could bomb them, he got a warning from a patrolling AWACS plane that two mystery jets were approachingprobably Serbian MiG 29s. The AWACs couldnt give clearance to shoot, so instead the F-16s had to turn tail and run to stay out of the MiGs missile range. The ever-so-lucky MiG pilots chased them for a few heady moments, then high-tailed it. Curly still fumes when he even thinks about running from a couple of raggedy MiGs.

So they send me to Life Support for my cool zippered flight suit, snugged-on helmet, spiffy black boots, and computer-inflated anti-g suit for the high-g turns, not to mention a discreet package of barf bags. The idea of unbuckling my oxygen mask quickly enough to use my barf bag inspires a wave of resolutely suppressed anxiety. Next they bundle me off to a simulator to show me how to pull the ejection seat lever. They also show me the sticks and buttons I ABSOLUTELY, DEFINITELY SHOULD NOT TOUCH.

Finally, retired Marine Corps Master Gunner Sergeant Bill Smith drives us out to the runway, where our heart-stoppingly sleek jet awaits. Later I learn that Bill spent thirty years in the Marines as a helicopter door gunner and was shot down three times and broken in many different places. He retired from the Marines and has spent the last sixteen years driving people around Luke.

The crew chiefa seemingly nice enough fellowcannot resist a final, Have fun. Dont puke.

A few minutes later, we spring lightly into the air, on a hurtle and a prayer.

The ground drops away, the sky opens up. On our wing, another F-16 climbs with usall grace and power and threat. We sit near the arrow-sharp nose, high on the body of the jet in front of the short, angled wings. The frameless canopy offers a terrifying, exhilarating view. But for the consuming roar of the great engine, it would seem like we were flying free.

We fly in formation with the other F-16 for the 60 miles to the aerial range. The HUD screen offers a stream of information, most of it meaningless to me. With his seat reclined at a comfortable 30 degrees to resist g-forces and all of the controls built into the stick and throttle, a Viper pilot can perform any imaginable maneuver without ever looking down or taking his hands off the stick.

It scares the hell out of me.

But then Viper Euphoria begins to seep out of the jet and into my bones.

Standing on the stolid, stodgy ground, I have watched ravens cavorting through the sky and wondered what it must be like to live free in three dimensions. I remember watching Carl Sagans Cosmos, in which he tried to explain the fourth dimension by asking his viewers to imagine themselves stick people sketched in two dimensions mystified by the concept of up. I remember the wonder of snorkeling over brilliantly corrugated reefs, floating in that third dimension as a giant manta ray glided soundlessly pastheartbreakingly beautiful.

This is better.

I quickly lose controlbut not like I thought.

Swooping between earth and heaven, I gasp, swear, and laugh manically. The sky stretches on forever and the desert tilts to the far horizon as the F-16 obliterates any notion of up and down. In a turn the g-forces overwhelm gravity, so the canopy defines up and the g-force of the turn creates down. The scorched browns and reds of the desert serve as sky as easily as the white-streaked blue of the atmosphere.

Encouraged by my gasps and expletives, Curly puts the Viper through an escalating series of maneuvers. He twirls the F-16 on its axis, the ground flashes past the canopy. We climb straight up and then he pulls back into a loop, holding the arc of the turn so I hang in my straps as I crane my neck to look straight up at the earth below. He waggles, veers, and swoopssimulating the twists needed to bring the death dot to bear on another jet or to shake off a SAMs radar lock. Then he flips the jet on edge for a series of tightening turns, maxing out finally at 9 gs. My g-suit inflates explosivelysqueezing my legs and chest. I sink into the hard seat, gasping for breath every two or three seconds, my cheeks sagging, my arms leaden, my head enormous as I struggle to look up through the canopy. The horizon tumbles crazily; the g-forces make it seem that the jet is holding its position and the earth is wobbling drunkenly out of its orbit.

Reassured by my demented laughter and perhaps remembering my wistful remark about how my dad loved to fly through clouds, Curly dives toward the ground, pulls up in a 9-g turn, and points the heart-piercing nose of the Viper at the only cloud he can finda lonely wisp drifting above the sun-seared desert at about 10,000 feet. He pierces the cloud, which streams past the window in a blur of steam and yearning.

Oh. God. Thats incredible, I gush.

Afraid thats the only cloud up here, says Curly, sounding disappointed.

Thats when the nausea hits melike a pothole at 60 miles per hour.

Now, youll like this, says Curly, determined to show me a good time. Take off your glove and put it in your lap. Well do the astronaut thingIll go into a big loop that makes you weightless. Your glove will float up off your lap. Its cool.

Uh. Oh. Well. Hang on a second, I say, fumbling with my oxygen mask until I find the little release catch, rip it away, and grope for the airsickness bag stuffed into the chest strap of my shoulder harness. Miraculously, I get the bag open in time. Mercifully, Curly flies the plane very carefully and calmly for the next few minutes. You OK back there? he asks pleasantly, after a decent interval.

Oh, yeah. Fine. Fine. Just kind of came over me. Out of nowhere, really, I say, wiping my face clumsily.

He flies ondead level, absolutely calm.

Well, we could head back, he offers.