Working in "The Biz," you get both your good and your bad days. Some days you get to cover a kickass story where you get to go places and experience things that few others ever will. Then there are days where you spend hours covering a cat fashion show. Well today I was fortunate enough to be handed a story that can be filed into the Kickass column. As you may be well aware, this week is some sort of Air Force recognition week... or something like that. A few days ago festivities were kicked off by flying some jet fighters over the capitol building, scaring the hell out of anyone who saw them because they thought there was a terrorist attack. Guess they didn't get the memo.
Today, a refueling plane was sent up from a base not too far from Sacramento to fuel up the Thunderbirds, a fleet of fancy looking Air Force jet fighters, who were on their way to an air show. My assignment? Ride shotgun.
We spent several hours flying over California and Nevada, including Yosemite. Here's a bomber's view of Half Dome:
One at a time, the jets flew up and received fuel from our vessel, and lined up in various formations around our plane. Let me tell you, it was awesome.
After the mission, the fun wasn't over! We were introduced to this bad boy:
I'm talking about the plane, not the dude. This is the F22, the most advanced jet fighter in the world. At $130 million a piece (about the price of a Spider-Man film), this fully stealth sucka is "equal to about six F15s." The pilot gave the following description: "Let's say the bad guys don't want you coming in. They've closed and locked the door. Well this big guy comes in, knocks down the door and says 'I don't think so'." They aren't even being used in the Middle East because they're "more power than is needed." Glad that I'm on this side of the boarder fence.
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