Originally Posted By: turtlevette
Originally Posted By: Astro14
I'm just glad you took the time to read it all...
This has to be the best internet thread of all time. I'm a bit frustrated considering myself very technically oriented not being able to understand much of it. I had aspirations to fly at the beginning of my career but thought Air Force. I mean, aversion to carrier landings is a no brainer. I washed out because I lost my cool with someone and decided to withdraw. But i probably could not have passed the g force tests and such either. I saw some vids of a civilian in the back seat passing out every time the jet turned. I could envision blowing out a blood vessel in my brain and dying instantly. That'd be my luck.
In top gun they were talking about a negative x-g turn when they shot the bird at the Russians. Wouldn't that have caused a huge blood pressure in their brains? You also hear of pilots getting red eyes where the blood vessels rupture.
Would you say the experience is fun, stressful, or stressful fun? There is a private facility that gives you a ride in an f4 for $10,000. Maybe someday if I get some money to blow.
Thanks turtlevette - I appreciate it!
I loved the experience. Stress comes from the demands of the mission - I never really felt stress from just flying the airplane, though, when I was brand new to the jet, there was stress from my own performance expectations with this big, complex, fast airplane.
There was always some of that performance expectation (self-placed as much as anything) when I was landing on a carrier...so, stress, yes, but I exhilarating and fun as well.
I was one of those weird guys who would gladly fly at night (some guys hated it)...I would take the flying experience, along with the stress of night carrier landings, over sitting on the boat every single time. Some guys really preferred not to fly at night at all...their stress/fun balance was different than mine, I suppose.
A ride in an F-4 would be great. That jet was a triumph of engineering for its time. Very good thrust/weight, even to this day. It would be worth it.
The negative G thing in Top Gun was complete Hollywood. The airplane was limited to about -2.3G, but your eyeballs were only good to about -2.0G. I've flown inverted on many occasions, and even -1.0G is a bit uncomfortable (fun, but not easy on your body).
A good friend (sadly, we lost him a long time ago, but that's another story) owned a Pitts Special. I saw him once at the squadron with completely bloodshot eyes...just like you would suspect, the capillaries in the eyes are what breaks first under negative G...he said it was a Lomcovak gone wrong, and he thought they hit -2.5...no thanks...and I don't know anyone that claims to have hit -4.0 as claimed in TopGun...
Positive G is another thing altogether. You can train for that. You can tolerate that for quite a while. First, you've got to raise your blood pressure so that it still gets to your brain. No blood flow to your brain, and 5 seconds later, it shuts down. It's simply hydraulics - a pressure and a column height (distance from heart to brain) relationship.
You can't really change the column height, though the F-16 reduced it somewhat with a reclining seat, so, you have to raise the pressure. You do this by increasing thoracic pressure. Inhale sharply, tighten your diaphragm, close your throat and squeeze. Exhale quickly and repeat. As long as you do that, you can keep your BP high enough to maintain blood flow to your brain. It takes a combination of muscular strength and aerobic capacity to sustain this effort. Short, squatty guys have an advantage here with a lower column height. I was at a disadvantage, being 6"1' and having a BP of 100/60 (back then). Hypertensive smokers would have an advantage, too, if it were just your static blood pressure in consideration. But the only way to get above about 4.0 G is to increase your blood pressure. That takes the fitness I described. I compensated for my static disadvantage through training and could maintain the Anti-G Strain Maneuver for a very long time.
Also, the blood goes to your legs, and with a G suit, and with pumping up the muscles of your legs and lower abdomen, you can force it back up to your heart. I loved pulling "G"...and the F-14B, in military power at 450 KIAS would maintain a steady 5 G indefinitely...so when I was teaching low-level flying, part of my sortie would include some G-tolerance flying...loaded up at 5-6 "G" for 15-20 minutes...
One other odd physiological note. For me (and this varies slightly for other people), the capillaries in my legs would burst at about 7.5 G. So, if I felt "tingling" in the back of my thighs, I knew I was overstressing the Tomcat, or right at the stress limit of the Hornet. I could feel the G and didn't have to look back inside the cockpit. And, oddly, there would be all of these little spots on the back of my legs after the flight - we called them "G measles" because it looked like you had measles...they were re-absorbed after a few days, like tiny bruises...
Admiral V - I'll have to give that video a watch. I've seen some snippets of it after one of my cousins told me about the series. I know some of the guys in it. The squadron CO/XO were peers of mine and I've flown with at least one of them...I love those documentaries...they take me back, and I can still smell the jet exhaust and salt air...