Hello, this is Local Girl's DH.
I flew a sortie at the War birds Adventures and it was possibly the best entertainment that I have ever experienced in my life. I was an F-16 Avionics Technician and retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1999. My wife purchased the flight for me as a gift in December 2003. We (the Warbirds Adventures pilot in the back seat and me in the front) flew a yellow Navy SNJ-6 which was the Navy's version of the Army Air Corps AT-6 Texan. It is a WWII aircraft that was used to train new pilots and is really maneuverable.
The aircraft I flew was manufactured by North American in 1946. The flight went something like this: 1) A brief preflight ground inspection of the aircraft; 2) Strap-in and a briefing on emergency escape procedures; 3) Engine start and taxi to the end of runway; 4) End of runway control checks and engine warm-up; 5) Take off.
The pilot handed control of the aircraft over to me as soon as we rotated (lifted off the runway) and retracted the gear. I flew most of the entire flight. The only time the pilot took control was to demonstrate a maneuver and then he handed the controls back over to me and I then performed the same maneuver. He only took control of the airplane during landing. I flew it away from, and back to, the airport.
It was an incredible experience to actually fly the aircraft and perform aerobatics but at the same time it was a lot of work. I was pretty tired after my 1-hour flight and I went back to our hotel and slept soundly for a couple of hours afterwards. You only pull about 3 Gs during the maneuvers but your body feels every ounce of the forces. (I am an average size guy: 5 foot 11 and weigh 200 pounds) I didnt throw up but there was a point in the flight when I got really woozy. There are airsickness bags easily accessible in the cockpit. The pilot talks about airsickness in his briefing and politely asks that you turn the microphone off before you barf so he doesnt have to hear it
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One thing that helped immensely with the G effects was to tense every muscle in my body when I first felt the Gs coming on. It reduces the blood loss to the brain during maneuvers. During G forces, blood tends to drain from the upper torso and pool into the legs. Its that loss of blood to the brain that causes the dizziness and nausea.
I highly recommend the flight. I think we paid for the photo package because we got a DVD of the flight and there were on-board cameras that took pictures of me during the flight. All in all a very cool experience!
