Have you ever volunteered yourself to leave your life in the hands of a bloke you’ve just met as you sit in an enclosed space that reminds you of the time you were wedged between the window and a heffalump in forty degree summer heat on a bus with no airconditioning? Perhaps you have found yourself in this situation before but for most, I can almost guarantee that you have never experienced this level of discomfort whilst strapped into a single propeller plane that is light enough for the captain to push it around with one hand on the runway with ease. And neither had I until I decided to pay a shitload of money on something that I wasn’t even hellbent on doing.
After several cancellations due to unforeseen circumstances, I finally got to live somebody else’s childhood dream to become Maverick, Goose, Charlie, Merlin, Viper and the rest of the Top Gun crew. As many women do with the characters from Sex in the City, I thought of myself as one of the guys from Top Gun; Goose. Not because he dies (spoiler alert) but because I felt like an absolute goose as I jumped into the Red Bull Stunt Plane and got strapped in.
I was shaking like a canary at a cat show as we drove down the runway and took off. Before doing all the flips n shit, I was cool, calm and collected, joking around as though the next half an hour wouldn’t rattle me in the slightest. It did. For a bloke who can’t ride the tea pots at a school fete without feeling queazy, the plastic bag and dry reaching came out quicker than a rat up a drain pipe. A barrel roll and loop de loop didn’t seem to upset my stomach too much but when we got into the upside down flying and combination manoeuvres, that all changed.
Watching the out of control back-burning next to Warragamba Dam and immersing amongst the serenity of Badgerys Creek and the M7, the plane flew backwards and mimicked the actions of that of a plane flying around a gate in an air race. How do you fly backwards you ask? I too was dumbfounded as to how this could be a possibility. By facing the nose of the plane toward the sky and putting the propellor into idle, the plane falls backward towards the ground. Reaching 8 G-Force (8 times the gravitational pull towards Earth) as the plane dropped and flew past a pretend air gate, my body had had enough. I lost consciousness. For only but a second or two, the loss of vision and difficulty to move my limbs made the flight back to Bankstown Airport one that involved cooking a bit of porridge and leaving some curb side quiche.
As I jumped out of the plane at the hanger, I knew that I would never get in one that purposely flew like that ever again. I very quickly remembered why that was not an activity I ever had any intention on doing before my stupid brain snap about a month ago. I’m glad to say that I have done it and that I have evidence of me battling through the air to be a reminder that I’m not as invincible as I sometimes think. If you have any intention to do it, I would definitely recommend it. You have to try these things to see how far you can push your body and from my perspective, this is definitely something that pushed mine.
The video below is one of an amateur, edited from an hour and a half of footage. It’ll give you a better idea of what it was actually like sitting up in the sky being an absolute maniac. If you feel sick from watching it, that’s the intention. I still feel like I’m going to chunder just thinking about it
Footage was filmed by Red Baron Adventure Flights and The Perks Of Life. Footage is owned by The Perks Of Life.
The accompanying tunes are by the following artistic genius':
Top Gun Anthem – Harold Faltermeyer & Steve Stevens
Danger Zone – Kenny Loggins
Walking With Elephants (Original Mix) – Ten Walls