My Rolex earns her stripes this weekend as we ride at 1800 km/h turning at 9G

[InitialAndPitch]

It’s 0730 hours inside a sturdy military building that sits on an important airfield. The day’s activities are well underway and I’ve passed through a series of security checkpoints, clutching my passport at each stage as my military escort explains my presence to the security details in jargon that’s mind boggling.
 
Inside the building, there’s more paperwork, passport copies and letter of credentials. Clutching muddy Air Force coffee in one hand we wind our way through the facility to the flight briefing room. I take a seat in the front row and my escort and I engage in small talk. The walls lined with maps, plaques, photographs, model jets and flags - making an aviator feel right at home.
 
I’ve just finished an assignment and rubbed shoulders with senior players in military aviation. I had many wonderful conversations about high performance flying and we had formed a bond as I have a long history of aerobatic flight and displaying attack jets. Work keeps me globetrotting much of the year and after this successful assignment, a senior player offered to show me around a critical fighter base.
 
The only rule is, anonymity. It’s fine to talk about your time on base but don’t identify the country, the location or the names of the individuals involved. And no photographs for security reasons. No problem.
 
In the front row of the briefing room, my coffee is gone and a tall solidly built guy in a flight suit enters from the left. We shake hands and both sit and talk. We’ll call him Mike to observe the anonymity requirements – call-sign “Magic Mike”. He flies FA/18 Hornets and says he’s been told that I’m a long time civilian aviator and asks me about what I’ve done - specifically high performance flight. The stars line up and he asks if I’d like to see the place from the air. Sure I said. I’m heading out to the range – fancy suiting up and taking the WSO (rear) seat? Is the Pope a Catholic?” I reply. It appears that one of my senior contacts had set up a Hornet flight as a bonus.
 
And so we begin arguably the most important part of the day - briefing. An introduction to the Hornet’s dual role of air-to-air fighter and ground attack aircraft built into one machine. Therefore the “F” and the “A” in the designation. An overview to aircraft systems, more as a courtesy as I’d be in the rear seat. The rear cockpit layout is explained and he says that once at altitude, he’d hand the ‘pole’ to me and it’d be my ship to fly under careful supervision.
  
Then there are plenty of warnings and safety procedures. I’m pretty much at home in an ejector seat but we brief that thoroughly. There’s old ground on thrust management, ‘conventional’ or military power (known as dry thrust) and then reheat or afterburner use (wet thrust) where extra fuel would be injected into the second stage of the engine for extra power. In the Vietnam War for example, the F4 Phantom used afterburner during takeoff - but leaving power at that setting would empty the fuel tanks in 8 minutes.
 
We finished talking about the mission profile - in reality a currency or training flight for him. But I suspect that my Squadron Leader pilot didn’t need a whole lot of training. We’d depart, climb, spent some time at altitude and then head to the piece of land reserved for ground attack and ultra low level flying.
 
Three rooms away, I meet the flight surgeon who asks me a series of questions, on cardiac issues, was I asthmatic, spinal issues/broken bones, blood pressure check, eyes and so on. My height is checked and seated measurements are taken and an assessment is made that if we needed to eject, I wasn’t going to lose my legs smashing past the instrument panel.
 
Despite my high g force experience, we run through the breathing (Hutt breathing) and lower limb squeezing techniques that would work in unison with the g-suit which is in essence like a pair of jeans with inflatable bladders and holes cut out for knees and lower pelvis. The g-suit doesn’t remove the g-Force being experienced but reduces its impact by about 3 g’s. I’ve always called them speed jeans.
 
I don an olive green Nomex flight suit, jacket, and am fitted for speed jeans, boots and a survival vest. A helmet with clear and dark visor and an oxygen mask that fits the helmet via a pair of silver bayonets.
  
Medical sign off and on to get kitted out for flight. All this equipment weighs around 10 kgs which is fine while standing on the ground. During high performance manoeuvring just the helmet and mask that now weighs close to 1 kg will weigh around 10kg. During an ejection, that combination can break your neck with some seats firing out at 16G. There are plenty of pilots out there who are now an inch or so shorter having ejected.
  
We leave the cinder block building and walk toward the flight line carrying out helmets in helmet bags. A group of servicemen are walking shoulder to shoulder about six feet apart scouring the ground for small things that might be sucked into a jet engine. Foreign object damage (a rogue screw or bottle top) can wipe out a $75 million dollar aircraft.
 
Ours is a tandem version of the aircraft being prepared by the flight crew. They check control surfaces, avionics, ejector seats, weapons systems and fuel is being loaded. All this is double checked as my pilot and I do a walk around. Unlike some of the Vietnam era jets I’ve flown, this bird isn’t low maintenance.
 
We climb the retractable boarding ladder onto a small section of black anti slip material and Mike settles into the forward cockpit a few feet in front of me and a crew chief helps me to strap into the ejection seat, connect comms and oxygen and tests it. A reinforcement on ejection - Mike will call eject - eject - eject and I’ll have just moments to pull the handles. Then there’s the things not to touch and some pointers on the heads up display. I slide my Nomex gloves on and manage to barely close the clasp of my Pepsi GMT-II over the top. I don’t want to leave too much exposed skin in case of fire. The crew begin to retreat and I see the back of Mike’s helmet and down the side of the jet I can see the crew standing by the remove the chocks and wave us out.
 
Over the comms, Mike tells me that we’re going for engine start with the assistance of an APU (Auxiliary Power Unit). The compressor is cranked up drawing air into the engine and at around 30% turbine rotation fuel is injected and a series of sparks frantically crackle to light the engine. For all the engine noise outside, the sound through the helmet is roughly akin to a vacuum cleaner. As we taxi out, the canopy comes down, arms in, it locks and Mike calls his checklist out loud.
 
We taxi onto the piano keys at the runway threshold and stop, then roll a few feet to check steering. We have a quartering headwind. You good to roll? Mike asks. Good to go. Mike says “I have the pole” meaning he’s now in control which will change throughout the sortie. Quick communication with the tower - we are granted an unrestricted climb and Mike spools up the engines to around 75% dry thrust and releases the brakes. From experience, I knew that the best place for your head is against the head rest. Strangely, it was a little slower off the mark than some of the jets I’ve flown due to its weight but it soon makes up for it. We’re at about 75 feet as the landing gear retracts with a satisfying thud and we get red warning lights. Dry thrust at full military power and at the end of the runway Mike lights the afterburners and pulls 5g onto the vertical and like a bolt of lightening we head for 25,000 feet in what was a matter of moments.
“The pole is yours” - “taking over I reply” as we level out and with his assistance we set a heading to an air combat training area. The aircraft is quite light to handle and I ask it f I can feel some thrust changes. The stick is very responsive and thrust is managed with short stubby thrust levers adorned with buttons. It also punches you back in your seat under wet thrust.
 
Stripped of weaponry and long-range fuel tanks we have a positive power to weight ratio which means pointing straight up we keep accelerating.
 
Mike takes over again as we pass through 35,000 feet and he was says Supersonic? We have ideal conditions for supersonic flight. He lights the afterburners once more and we accelerate from Mach 0.7 to Mach 1.2 very quickly. No shocks, jolts or surprises. Only a little wobble on the mach meter. Our cockpits are forward of the wings so it’s a smooth transition through the transonic zone. At sea level, the speed of sound is around 750 miles an hour, the higher you that changes.
 
An aircraft flying below the speed of sound sends “”signals” ahead of its position to let the air know that it should fall into a smooth laminar flow or get out of the way. Approaching Mach, the aircraft can’t signal the air in front fast enough and a shock wave builds up in front of the aircraft. Mike holds the reheat on and I watch the Machmeter move up to Mach 1.6 - that’s a blistering 1800+ km/h. Reheat off to save fuel which is currently burning at about 72,000 lbs/hr, the airspeed drops below Mach and I’m handed the pole for some basic aerobatics - first an aileron roll (passable), Mike demonstrates a constant angle of attack loop - stick back, add G and hold as we paint a circle in the sky. Then he helps me through some 30 degree turns - maintaining angle of bank and exact altitude is tough in this new setting. I relinquish control “High G turns - OK “ he asks. Yep good to go.
 
Mike introduces dry thrust and rolls onto left bank and he loads the fighter up to almost 9G. The speed jeans inflate and crush the lower part of my body. Squeezing my vascular system to stop blood flowing downhill into my legs. The aim being to keep the blood supply inside my heart and head to avoid g-loc (G induced loss of consciousness). In tandem with the g-suit I squeeze my legs and breath while uttering Hutt - Hutt - Hutt. The 1 kilogram helmet now weighs 9kg and my neck really feels it - my G tolerance is pretty good but I develop a small measure of peripheral vision loss as the blood drains away. I’m used to aerobatic aircraft that can pull 10G but only for a few seconds. It’s the length of time under G that really takes its toll. For a few minutes we dodged cloud and I had the stick and Mike talks me through the afterburner process. Using a horizon reference point I firmly but studiously pushed the thrust lever all the way forward and we accelerated from 550 knots through the sound barrier once again. 30,000 feet below, somebody is probably hearing the sonic boom we’re dragging behind us.
 
After a few more novice attempts at half reverse cubans and high angle of attack flying, Mike takes over and we head for the deck. We intercept a wide river with large smooth stones beside it. At about 70 feet, Mike follows the river at 550 knots indicated. It’s always hard to readjust your brain to comprehend those speeds. I’m not touching the stick for now - for both our sakes. As the river merged into a huge bend, Mike inverted the aircraft, pitched slightly nose up and flew over the rocky outcrop guiding the water.
 
We leave the river and proceed into the mountains and we follow the contours of the valleys with trees within arms reach - still at 500 knots. The ride is deliberate but rough – turbulence coupled with extremely authoritative course corrections. Neck really under strain. A truly out of body experience. On the other side of the mountains Mike tells me that we’re in the ground attack range. With a target about 10 kms away we elect to simulate a strafing run. The Hornet is equipped with a Gatling gun that can deliver in the ballpark of 6000 rounds per minute. I crane my neck to look down the left side of then jet and see abandoned military hardware used as targets. Simulated attack done, we pull nose up and head back for the heavens.

We cross to the coast and drop down to 300 feet over relatively abandoned beaches. At 300 knots, we fly the coastal contour until we temporarily enter civilian airspace. We spot the mouth a river draining into the ocean and we break hard right and slip up through the centre of this town, giving off a primal roar.
  
About half way back to base, I ask Mike if we can do a “Carrier Break” or in the spirit of my user name here an “Initial and Pitch”. Supersonic jet fighters don’t like flying slowly (and neither do we aviators.) Put simply, we get permission from the tower to approach the airfield at speed (500+ knots), cross the threshold, run the length of the runway and at the end we close power, break left at 5G and let the huge drag forces slow the aircraft. It’s a circuit but a very intense one. We crane our necks around to see the runway for positioning and making minuscule power changes to compensate, I’m thrown forward in my seat as we slow spectacularly. In one long smooth arc, Mike puts us on short final, gear down prepared for touchdown.
 
As I peel the g-suit and flight suit away, My legs are a bit red from the g-suit compression. I fly home tonight long haul in the luxury but boredom of business class.
 
When you wear these watches, they become the sum of the experiences you’ve had with them. My GMT has now proved that she has ‘The Right Stuff’ and for a short time, barring spy planes – she was probably the fastest Rolex on the planet.

(The watch image is mine, the jet pics are not - just to give you a feel)

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[Runner_up]

Awesome read

[skyseadweller]

that's one hell of a story to recount to your grandkids later on , well done

[inadeje]

Pretty exhilarating read OP, one can feel the excitement

[rebel_1]

Great post! And great flight / experience!

[Rob_b]

I got to say, after reading that, my job.......seems.......well....kind of pedestrian.

I do fly often, just not at 1800 km/h or 9G

Great job you're doing for us, keep up the good work mate

[Avs Fan]

Very cool. Thanks for relating this adventure!

[Odie-r]

Amazing story. I dream of these details when watching the planes at an air show. Thanks OP!

[fluffybunny]

Well written, great story - thank you.

[tadbart]

Great read! You got to do something most of us will only dream of. The Hornets do bomb practice in the forest about 20 miles north of me. They are truly fear-inspiring pieces of machinery.

Thank you for sharing your experience with us!

[Pauln]

Fantastic story! Thanks for sharing it.

[Meechi]

I wish I could fly my B777 like that, but lots of cranky pax and a plane with no wings afterwards.

[Car32]

Awesome read, awesome Pepsi

[Number3]

Great read OP, thanks for sharing.

[KBM]

I really enjoy your tales here. Keep posting them!

[Pw92676]

A great read.

[ilovethiscity]

Thank you so much for sharing!!!

[Dyim]

[101031-28]

Great story, thank you for sharing!

[Pol1]

[TheGRman]

Very well written and exciting to read! Your watch is a great companion for you.


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[schen04]

Amazing. You are one lucky guy.

[Viral]

amazing!!

"Talk to me Goose" is all I could think about =)

[SergeantBernie]

Cool post like this makes me proud to work in STL on the campus where these machines are born.

[RGSVan]

Incredible story and would love to experience!

[maylebox]

An outstanding tale sir. Well done.

[jburson250]

An amazing story, well told. Thank you!

[drmizzou]

Wow. What a great read. Thanks!

[soxfan39]

I'd pee my pants or compression suit before we'd lift off! Don't know how you guys do it. Amazing stuff!

[007timer]

You really should be a writer as well. I am sucked into the stories and feel like I was right there with you as I read it.



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