THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 21, 1995 TAG: 9509210406
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY EDWARD POWER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 128 lines
The No. 7 crew chief, a big affable second class from Kentucky named Ronnie Harper, gave me my first warning of the afternoon: ``He's not gonna try to kill you. But he could.''
The ``he'' was Lt. Ryan Scholl, a member of the Navy's Blue Angels precision flight team and the pilot with whom I was scheduled to fly Wednesday. As part of his advance work for this weekend's air show at Oceana Naval Air Station, Scholl had agreed to take me out over the Atlantic and put his F/A-18 Hornet - and me - through some of the maneuvers used by the Blue Angels.
Harper said he had intimate knowledge about Blue Angel pilots like Scholl taking up unwitting first timers. Harper had been there. Done that.
``The first time I went flying last year they tried to kill me,'' he recalled in his smooth drawl. The pilot ``overstressed the plane and I passed out twice and when I came back (he) was singing Christmas carols to me.''
I didn't exactly know what Harper meant about overstressing the plane and passing out - but I would learn soon enough. Less than a minute into my flight, I came face to face with the invisible elephant that jet pilots refer to as ``pulling Gs.''
To me it became an elephant that crept up on a small, green cockpit readout. Whenever the readout started to go above ``2.0 G,'' I knew it was coming. By ``4.0 G,'' it was hugging me uncomfortably. By ``5.0 G,'' it was jumping on my face.
We taxied down the runway at Oceana, gathering speed quickly. I kept thinking about what Harper had told me after he got through saying that 65 percent of first-timers pass out. After he taught me to fight blackouts by breathing deep, tightening my leg muscles and screaming ``hook!'' under my breath so it would force my chest muscles to tense. After he explained to me how to throw up without ruining his jet's cockpit.
It was then that Harper smiled one of those Kentucky holler-wide smiles not practiced for the media or anyone else, and said: ``Trust me, there is not a roller coaster in the country like you are fixin' to ride on.''
Then Scholl's voice, from the front seat of the Hornet, came over the radio headset in my helmet and snapped me back to the moment at hand. The landscape of Oceana was hurtling by, faster, faster.
``We're airborne now,'' Scholl said. ``We're about 230, 240, 250. . . .''
Scholl counted off the jet's speed in knots until the plane hit about 260. Then, matter of factly, he reminded me to put my head back and said ``Ready, ready, pull!''
Scholl took the jet almost straight up toward the clouds. And hit the two engines' afterburners. Upwards of 16,000 pounds of thrust screamed from the twin General Electric turbofans.
That was when the elephant climbed in the cockpit with me for the first time. Sat on my chest. Sat hard on my chest. Invisible, breathtaking, and more than a little bit scary.
Through the canopy I saw a huge whoosh of white smoke sweeping back behind us, Oceana and Virginia Beach falling away. And the stretch marks around the corners of my mouth, where the elephant had forced its foot for four or five seconds, gave way to a big, Ronnie Harper-like, Kentucky holler-wide . . . smile.
Damn, I thought.
Out over the Atlantic, Scholl steered the McDonnell-Douglas Hornet to a spot about 25 miles south of Oceana and five miles off the coast. This was the airspace that had been cleared for our aerobatic maneuvers.
Scholl is what's known as the Blue Angels' narrator. He's a veteran jet pilot who has flown with three different jet squadrons and who, in 1993, won the Navy strike fighter community's Scott Speicher Award for ``superior tactical weapon delivery.''
Translated into Hollywood terms, Scholl is a ``top gun'' pilot. But he has been with the Blue Angels for only a year, so he will soon finish up his initial year as narrator of the show and join one of the Angels' two flight show formations.
``I feel a great amount of pride and exuberance doing this. . .,'' he told me. ``We (the Blue Angels) are good officers and good aviators, but we are the average when you look at all the talent out there in the Navy. Our job is to show the public what Navy discipline is about.''
Out there, over the blue Atlantic, Scholl proceeded to take us through some easy rolls, rotating the jet so we went from sky overhead to ocean overhead and back to sky. It was agile flying, beautiful.
Then we did some loops, climbing up toward the heavens and rolling over the top, upside down until we were heading back toward to ocean again. After a couple such loops we could see the smoke trails above or below us, where our jet had just been.
Each time, Scholl warned me of the coming Gs and each time I uttered my hook! and tensed my muscles to keep blood in my head so I wouldn't pass out. So far, I hadn't. But sweat poured off my forehead, and I had begun to feel faintly queasy.
Then came the vertical rolls. Straight toward the clouds, like our takeoff, only combined with rolling the jet over and over.
I saw the readout quickly go to five and then six Gs. Elephant time.
Tensing, saying hook! hook! in my head, I suddenly saw a shadow start to come over my eyes. Hook, dammit! Hook!, I thought. I heard some strange voice I couldn't recognize. Laughing like from a distant TV set.
``Ed, you still with me?'' Scholl asked.
``Hooook,'' I said.
``Ed,'' Scholl chuckled, ``it's over.''
I glanced at the readout. So it was. The elephant was gone. And I hadn't passed out.
For the next 10 or 15 minutes, we did some easy flying, broke the sound barrier, and I flew the F/A-18, taking it over in a roll. It was pure joy.
As we made our approach back to Oceana, Scholl asked me if I wanted him to take it easy or make one last hard turn over the airfield, a turn that would pull about five Gs - and give me one last bout with the elephant.
I put my fists in my lap. Started tensing my leg muscles, hard as I could.
Then I breathed deeply, and, in my best elephant-hunter voice, urged Scholl on.
Hook! Hook! ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by PAUL AIKEN/
Reporter Edward Power is either praying or simulating a blackout as
he readies himself for a flight with a Blue Angeles team member.
Crew chief Ron Harper plugs his ears against any last thoughts Power
might express as the plane taxies away.
Graphic
THE AIR SHOW
The Oceana Naval Air Station air show, featuring the Navy's Blue
Angels flight team, is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday and is free
and open to the public. Oceana's four public gates open at 9 a.m.
each day; there is ample parking on the base with shuttle service
available from remote parking.
The air portion of the show - including parachute jumps and other
aerobatic acts - begins at 11 a.m. The Blue Angels are scheduled to
perform at 3:30 p.m. on both days.
by CNB