The Wild Blue Under : At 6 Gs, Air Show Reporter Scarcely Knew Which Way Was Up

EL TORO —  “That guy, he loves Gs,” the officer told me with a menacing laugh.

Oh boy, just what I wanted to hear.

“That guy” was the pilot readying his F/A-18 jet to take me on a Mach-speed, spin-filled tour over the Pacific Ocean.

And Gs , for those of you with both feet on the ground, measure the force of gravity weighing down on you in the already-snug cockpit of the $25-million aircraft; G as in gut-wrenching and grueling, as in green and giddy and aghast, as in going, going, gone.

G as in God, what am I doing here?

Lucky me, my pilot loved ‘em. And if I had any doubts about his devotion, Capt. Ken Switzer dispelled them in quick order, kicking in the afterburners on ascent, taking us near the speed of sound at 650 m.p.h. and at more than six times the earth’s gravity, and never looking back. Buckled in at every limb, I couldn’t have, even if I’d wanted to.

What a reporter won’t do in the name of keeping the public well-informed.

And I didn’t even get a T-shirt reading “I Survived the F/A-18,” or maybe “No, I Didn’t Ralph,” awaiting me on the still-wobbly ground at the end of Wednesday’s 40-minute flight.

Switzer and his fellow Blue Angels, a Pensacola, Fla.-based stunt team of Navy and Marine Corps fliers, set up the ride. They wanted both to attract publicity for this weekend’s air show at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station and to help me answer that long-perplexing question: just what does 32,000 pounds of thrust on takeoff en route to a 55-degree ascent really feel like?

As for the first goal of publicity, the show is expected to draw at least 1 million people; as for giving me that intimate feeling of being in the type of jet fighter used by the Marine Corps and Navy in the Persian Gulf--well, I got it.

Pick an adjective: intense , once - in - a - lifetime , overwhelming , awe - inspiring , cosmic , hallucin o genic . All seem to apply.

“Wild,” was all I seemed able to muster over and over as Switzer asked me through the cockpit microphone how it was back there.

Allusions to incredible roller-coaster rides and scenes from Star Wars seem a bit cliched, but they may have to do: it’s tough to describe the indescribable.

A petty officer tried. Prepping me for the flight the day before with a ride in the ejection seat--an emergency device you hope you’ll never use--he told me to look at the ride and the senses it would stir as a combination of euphoria and “drunkenness at taxpayer expense.”

(The flight probably cost upwards of $5,000, using enough fuel in an hour to keep many cars going for a year, the Blue Angels said.)

Not a bad approximation, this drunk-euphoria image. But the lows--feeling like you’re about to lose your breakfast as the clouds whiz upside-down below you--aren’t nearly low enough. And the highs--whooshing over orchards and ball fields, oceans and islands, cutting at near-right angles with the precision of a sculptor--are not nearly high enough.

Imagine instead what it’s like at one moment to feel as if the weight of the world has come crumbling down on you. Your arms--six times their normal weight--lumber at your side. The blood is rushing so furiously down to your legs that you are reduced to imitating an NFL lineman--tensing up your entire torso and screaming “Hook! Hook! Hook!” on command from the pilot--just to keep from passing out as the Gs hit 6.2.

But seemingly an instant later, you are weightless--literally--as the Gs reach zero. You float aimlessly toward the clear canopy of the jet, half a dozen metal straps now your only link to the plane. The pilot is used to this, making jokes all the while, but for you, it all seems like some heavenly scene from Albert Brooks’ latest movie, “Defending Your Life.”

Switzer ran the gamut of stunt maneuvers, just as hundreds of thousands will see them at the air show this weekend, performing barrel rolls and wing-overs to diamond rolls and others with names I didn’t catch because I was too busy gripping the seat handles and grunting “hook!”

The ironic thing is that at least for this novice flyboy, the maneuvers become far less distinguishable from inside the plane than from outside.

Watching the takeoff of an earlier flight from the ground, I was amazed to see the power and precision of the jet as it reached 300 m.p.h. in seconds and then, in a shot, began a dramatic ascent into the clouds. (The Blue Angels claim the ascent was only 55 degrees, but it looked from here as near a right-angle as you could imagine.)

But once in the plane, the distinct maneuvers--cutting sharply, rolling over, flying upside down, all at hundreds of miles an hour--were blurred by enormous, undefined rushes of motion. Up is down, left is right, and all is blue.

The car ride back to the office I took a bit slower. After all, I knew what to expect there.

For weeks beforehand, as the possibility of flying in the F/A-18 neared, I had to put up with the hallway remarks:

The comedians warned me not to eat much beforehand--or risk wearing it home. The more morbid reporters asked whether I was sure I wanted to be doing this after having written several less-than-flattering stories lately about military officials at El Toro. And the understated ones just shook their heads and said: “So, you’re going on the F/A-18? Heh, heh.”

The barrage continued once I got back to the office to write this story, with several making jokes about my pale complexion and wind-swept hair (they used less flattering terms) and reveling in the photos of me getting off the plane, hand to stomach.

(They didn’t believe me when I said that I was simply trying to pick some lint off the flight suit, appearances notwithstanding.)

But to the most frequently asked question--”Did you . . . (fill in: Ralph, york, barf, or other slang meaning to throw up),” I can answer with a truthful and resounding NO. I never even had to reach for the air sickness bags. And to these fine colleagues, I only wish them the chance to take a ride on the F/A-18 and find out for themselves. Heh, heh.