Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 9, 1993                   TAG: 9306090202
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

WILDER WINGS IT IN AN F-16

Douglas Wilder hopped a ride in an F-16 jet Tuesday. Zooming along at 400 mph, the pilot let the governor take the control stick. It wasn't enough for Wilder just to feel that much power for a few seconds. He had to use it.

He rolled the plane.

Now it's official: Doug Wilder, High Roller.

"I know why they tell you you shouldn't eat anything before going up," a grinning governor said afterward. Wilder hadn't eaten, so he didn't have anything to lose, so to speak.

Wilder was honoring a year-old invitation from the Virginia Air National Guard. "We've checked our records, and you're the first governor to come out and ride in a fighter plane," Col. William Jones told Wilder during his preflight briefing.

"Is that right? No governor?" Wilder said. "Well, I'm very pleased."

And the fliers clearly were pleased to have him, never mind the flap a few months ago about his order to take the Confederate battle flag off the insignia for the 149th Fighter Squadron.

A few old-timers protested briefly outside the gates about Wilder's scrapping the symbol. Inside, no one seemed to care. "That decision's been made and we're moving forward," Wilder said.

"The invitation was issued long before any of that," said Jones, who piloted the governor on his hour-plus flight.

The flight plan: From Richmond to Hopewell, then a hard right down toward Roanoke Rapids, N.C., then a soft left to the Outer Banks. Jones showed the governor a Dare County bombing range (they didn't drop any ordnance), then took him over the ocean and broke the sound barrier.

They returned over Hampton Roads. Wilder joked before the flight about dropping in on the Hampton home of state Sen. Hunter Andrews, a powerful rival in General Assembly budget fights.

"So tell him, after his house was buzzed, `Now you can blame me for all the roses falling off the vines,' " Wilder said.

That temptation, the governor resisted.

But he couldn't pass up the chance to fly the $14 million jet, which has 25,000 pounds of thrust. Wilder had gone through an orientation in a cockpit mock-up. Pull that lever, he learned, and the canopy will blow off. Knot that hose, they said, and you can't breathe. Don't touch anything red.

When they got in the sky, Jones told Wilder to go ahead and try his hand on the control stick. The governor tipped it to the side, putting the plane into a roll.

"Pull it, pull it," Jones urged.

Wilder admits he got disoriented during the maneuver. "They say sometimes you don't know whether you're straight, sideways or upside down," he said. "Quite frankly, I was at that point."

Which, come to think of it, is another first. You'd never hear Wilder say such a thing to the General Assembly.