Do I?
I rub the back of my neck with my free hand, straightening.
“Yeah, some days.Nothing compares to those G’s.”My gaze lifts to the sky.
The first time I hit my first nine G-force in an F16 fighter jet, I swear I had an orgasm.It was the best feeling of my life.
To put it into perspective, a resting human experiences one G-force normally as they walk around.Gravity, essentially, otherwise we’d be floating bits in space.On a commercial flight, the maximum allowed is 2.5Gs during takeoff.A rollercoaster can get up to 5Gs.
Marshall plugs something in, and it beeps, lights coming alive on the machine.
“Those F15s can go up to 12Gs, I heard.Fuck, man.Imagine.”
I smile.
“Motherfucker, you’ve been in one.”He straightens, planting his free hand on his hip and looking like a kid in a candy store.
“Flown one, my friend.”I grin widely.He knows I was a captain, so shouldn’t be surprised, but then again, not everyone gets in one of those eagles.
I was lucky, and it’s something I’ll never forget.
All that power.
The feeling of being free and in control, yet at the mercy of fate.
“They’re capable of going higher, but it’d have to be an emergency situation to get approval,” I tell him.
And no pilot wants to do that without cause.
While flying at such enormous speeds is thrilling, it is very dangerous and the impact on your body is real.
We are trained to push the air out of our lungs while closing off our vocal cords, while simultaneously contracting our muscles in our calves, thighs, and shoulders.
Yeah, it takes practice.
And hurts like a motherfucker until you get it right.
“Should’ve joined the Air Force.”Marshall smirks.
“Dude, you were a Green Beret,” I laugh.
“Yeah, but we didn’t have kickass fighter jets to play with.”
They are not toys, and he knows it.
But yeah, they fucking are.
Still, as a pilot, you don’t spend all your time in the air flying around like a metal-wrapped Superman.Non-flying tasks are drummed into us when you join the United States Air Force.
“You are officers first and pilots second,” the commanding officer said on day one.
Jayden and I had grinned at one another.We didn’t care; we just wanted to get into the jets.That’s before reality set in and you started to shit yourself.
In truth, we were well-trained and prepared when we did.
“There’s a lot more desk work than people think,” I tell Marshall after a chuckle.When he gives me a questioning look, I switch the drone to my other hand.“The paperwork is a killer, and it’s the pilot who has to do it.Not our commanding officers.”
“Yeah, fuck.That would take the fun out of it.”I can see his eyes semi-gaze as he recalls some of his missions.“It’s important, though.”
