The Fright Stuff : Riding With Navy’s Blue Angels an Exhilarating Journey Into Terror

Editor’s Note: Times staff writer Barry S. Surman went aloft Wednesday for a demonstration run with a member of the Blue Angels who will be performing at El Toro this weekend. This is his account .

Lt. Wayne Molnar is waving his right hand, which really should be on the control stick, and the desert is rolling past at a cool 600 miles an hour.

“You’re flying the airplane now,� he tells me on the intercom. “You want to try a roll?�

My left hand can’t quite find the “talk� switch, but the lack of color in my face tells the pilot, checking his mirror, as much as he needs to know.

“We can fly straight for a while, if you want,� Molnar says.

I try to smile as I give him the thumbs up. Got to look cool, after all, even when you’re about to drive $18 million worth of the taxpayers’ hardware into the side of Mt. Laguna.

“Having fun?� Molnar asks.

Fun? If Disneyland’s Space Mountain used to be an E ticket, then this ride in a Blue Angels TA-4 jet would be somewhere near a P.

We’ve done wing-overs and barrel rolls, loops and snap rolls and a few other stunt maneuvers I couldn’t name, let alone describe, without again feeling the bile rising up in my throat and the brain tissue flattening out against the back of my skull.

“Lean your head back, and watch this,� Molnar advises, as he pulls the stick straight back, making Borrego Springs disappear under the nose of the jet.

The acceleration produces a force of 4 Gs--four times the force of the earth’s gravity--pinning my head to my seat back and my stomach to my spleen.

But the view through the glass canopy overhead, whatever “overhead� might mean when you’re flying upside down, is incredible.

Sagebrush-dotted desert mountains fall into a cloud-streaked sky. The ashen desert floor rushes up, then under. And we’re level again. No problem.

“Want to see how fast we’re going?� Molnar asks, as we drop a few thousand feet in a matter of seconds. Low-altitude flying, he explains, provides a stationary frame of reference, enhancing one’s visual perception of velocity.

Whizzing Along

The relevant gauges are just above my left knee. The altimeter puts us at 850 feet, the airspeed is more than 400 knots--almost 500 miles an hour. A solitary palm tree whizzes past like a mescal-crazed giraffe fleeing a rabid blue bat. We are going fast.

I glance ahead, over Molnar’s shiny yellow helmet, and see a mountain. A dark, forbidding mountain, strewn with red boulders and, I suspect, with the remains of precision pilots. We’re getting closer but the ruddy peak isn’t making the expected evasive maneuver.

“You there, Wayne?�

No answer. “Wayne?� Oh God, he’s blacking out! (We learned all about stagnant hypoxia in aviation physiology class.) “Wayne! WAYNE!�

My knee brushes the “talk� switch, behind the stick, just to the right of that jiggling gauge I haven’t quite figured out. I press the switch. Cool, now, real cool. “Pretty mountain, huh?�

“Yep,� says Wayne. “We’re gonna follow her right up.�

If I didn’t quite have the right stuff, the Navy at least made sure I wasn’t going to explode in mid-air before they let me bum a ride above the Southland in their little blue jet plane.

First, I was treated to a seven-hour tour of the medical facilities at the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. Blood sample, urine specimen, let me take your pulse sir, X-ray, on the scale, off the scale, right hand over your right eye please sir. L-P-C-T-Z, B-D-F-E-O.

Open wide, check the teeth-- got to be able to identify the charred remains --up the stairs, down the stairs, EKG, allergies? Have you ever had appendicitis?

Next was “aviation physiology,� an 11-hour day of fun-filled classes on blood pooling and blacking out, hyperventilation and expanding bodily gases, bone-crushing parachute injuries and head-spinning disorientation.

Not Amusement Rides

But the rides were fun--a blindfolded spin in a rotating chair to discover the effects of spatial disorientation, a quick swing in a parachute simulator to learn how to fall five miles from a burning airplane without breaking a sweat or a leg and a trip to 25,000 feet in the low-pressure simulator to see how much my brain really does enjoy oxygen starvation.

Finally, I get to try the ejection-seat simulator, a clever little device that shoots me 15 feet into the air, in full flight gear, with an instantaneous force of about 16 Gs.

Lt. Mike Hann shook my hand as he gave me the white 3-by-5 card, certifying that I had passed the test. Someone, I thought, has made a terrible mistake. They are going to let me fly.

“Angel Seven, you’re clear for takeoff.� With a rolling start, we hurtle down the runway. At 240 knots, Molnar raises the gear.

“Ready to fly?� he asks. It’s an absurd question because already we are strangers to the tarmac. I look down to see the airstrip cruising by, just six feet below the airframe.

The stick moves sharply toward my groin, and we climb a few thousand feet, at an angle of approximately 80 degrees. This is a real kick. I’m grinning so hard my cheekbones might just poke through my helmet and bump the canopy.

At 400 knots, Lake Mission Viejo quickly fades to a drop below us, and Lake Elsinore comes and goes like a summer cold.

(This image comes to mind, I later realize, because my nose, always sensitive to pressure changes, is running like the Raiders’ backfield. All these pockets, and not a single Kleenex in my flight suit.)

Are We Having Fun Yet?

In no time, we’re over the desert, chuckling over the state of a parched golf course below us and pulling 2 1/2-G turns between laughs.

Moments or maybe hours later, we’re cruising up the coast, passing small planes thousands of feet below us. My stomach is back in Borrego Springs.

As we drop onto the runway--�a little high,� Molnar complains of his landing--I feel like I’ve been strapped into this ejection seat for days. It’s really only been an hour, but the clothes underneath my flight suit are soaked with sweat and every muscle in my body aches.

I feel as if I just ran to the desert and back.

Wayne warns me to keep my arms inside the plane and wait for Petty Officer 1st Class Dave Donaldson to unhitch me from the seat.

Before I can say, “Get me out of here,� Molnar has popped the canopy, dumped his helmet, and is on the ground chatting with the comely Marine staff sergeant who put me up to this ride.