TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/051490/0514140.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.3 KB | 113 lines

                                                                                LIVING, Page 84

Walter Mitty Wins a Dogfight


Dreams come true for those with nerve -- and cash

By EDWIN M. REINGOLD


    I eased the control stick back for a gut-wrenching turn and
climb, then rolled my fighter above the enemy plane. The
California desert spun dizzily when I came zooming down behind
him as he tried to shake me.

    "Get your pipper on him! Shoot him! Shoot him!" yelled my
copilot, Denny ("Dooley") Jackson, as the enemy tried to break
left. But I had him in the 100-mil circle of my gunsight. I
squeezed the trigger, and felt the stutter of the machine guns
and watched the plane belch smoke. The world was in color
again; the G-forces had receded; my stomach was back where it
belonged. Victory was mine. The radio link to the other plane
came alive. "Yee-haw!" taunted the loser of this aerial
gunfight, a trucking-company official from Tucson. "Now it's my
turn."

    We were flying -- with the indispensable help of flight
instructors -- in identical Italian-built, Marchetti SF.260W
air-force trainers, experiencing the sometimes sickening thrill
of aerial combat, but without the lethal weapons. I am neither
a licensed pilot nor a natural-born killer. But this was a
Walter Mitty dream of combat come true -- and, as someone once
said about bullfighting, it may be inexcusable, but it's
irresistible.

    That's what Mike Blackstone and his crew at Air Combat
U.S.A. in Fullerton, Calif., have going for them. "We're having
altogether too much fun around here," he says. Since he bought
his first two-seat trainers and went into the business last
spring, more than 1,000 would-be fighter aces have flown
sorties. For about $500 a flight, Air Combat U.S.A. will give
the Top Gun fanatic an exhilarating course in aerial tactics
guaranteed to put your stomach in your throat with maneuvers
that test the mettle of experienced nonmilitary pilots -- not
to mention the amateurs, like myself. But surprisingly, says
Blackstone, "the amateurs often do better than the experienced
pilots, because in air combat you break all the rules of
straight-and-level flight."

    "Don't look at anything but the bogey," Dooley's voice
crackled in my helmet. "Keep your wings level with his; now
come on back on the stick. Keep your eyes on him." I'm looking
straight up through the canopy, my head back as far as it will
go. It gets heavier as we go over in a roll to intersect the
geometry of the other plane's evasive maneuver. The gravity
force is building up again, and the plane begins to buffet.
I've used up too much energy, and we slide down, missing
another chance to line up a shot. The earth comes spiraling up
at us as we regain airspeed. Too late. The enemy is on me now,
and I'm in his gunsight. ("Lose sight and you lose the fight.
You can't shoot what you can't see," Blackstone had warned in
his preflight briefing.) "Break left, break left," yells
Dooley. There is a signal tone that tells me I've been hit. Now
I am trailing smoke. I'm a goner.

    The Air Combat operations shack at Fullerton Municipal
Airport is a beehive, as pairs of fledgling aces go through
their briefings, don flight suits and parachutes and climb into
the low-wing propeller planes for the thrill of a lifetime.
When the planes return from the hour-long flight, airsickness
bags are discreetly discarded and a debriefing takes place
using videotape from the cockpit and gun camera of each
airplane. (Trainees keep the videotapes as a souvenir.)

    "I don't know anybody who wouldn't like to do this,"
enthused one novice flyer, a New York City stockbroker. Not
everyone agrees. One recent client showed up with a bellyful
of Dramamine and sheepishly admitted that his wife bought him
his flight as a surprise after he foolishly muttered, while
watching Top Gun, that he'd like to fly an F-14 one day. He got
sick during Blackstone's hangar briefing on aerial maneuvers
and slunk away with only a promotional tape as a consolation
prize.

    Blackstone, 42, has been flying since he was twelve. He now
pilots a jetliner across the country for American Airlines.
Though he never flew in real combat, in his spare time he
learned the ups and downs of dogfighting in his own Pitts
biplane while dodging other aerobatic enthusiasts. "We used to
say, `Hey, I got you,' and the other guy would say, `Naw, you
missed me.'" So Blackstone, an engineer, devised an electronic
system to signal a kill and verify it. A tone sounds in the
loser's cockpit, and a smoke generator emits a trail of hot oil
vapor. With his system installed in three Marchettis and a
roster of instructor pilots such as Dooley Jackson, Air Combat
U.S.A. was born. Blackstone has four planes and a line on a
dozen more. With a mighty air armada abuilding, he is
considering expanding to Florida and Georgia.

    "Do not fly level," Dooley's voice warned. "Keep up your
energy; get some speed and altitude; don't look at the
instruments; keep your eye on him." I'm at home watching the
tape, the ultimate video game. I've got that red star in my
gunsight, and I'm leading him just like in the manual. "You got
him," yells Dooley. I smile to myself and nod coolly. Not too
bad for a guy old enough to be Tom Cruise's father.