My former editor, Michael, is now the editor of a magazine called the Journal of Electronic Defense. The JED is a trade magazine for the defense industry, and that means Michael regularly travels to far-flung places to report on the latest in electronic warfare gear. I always feel a twinge of envy when he tells me about meeting mad scientists in London or going to Singapore to report on an invisible ship. So when Michael asked if I wanted to go with him to fly a $1.5-million Boeing EA-18 fighter-jet simulator at the GE Aircraft Engines plant in Lynn, I didn’t have to think about it for very long.
    The EA-18 is basically an FA-18 Super Hornet fighter that’s set up to jam enemy radar and take out anti-aircraft threats. Even though the EA-18 has electronics in its nose instead of the sexy machine gun that the FA-18 has, it’s still got great product literature. The brochure touts attributes such as “increased lethality” and “wall-to-wall advanced weapons” that “yield a formidable Wild Weasel capability.” It’s a good thing I’m not Director of Purchasing Stuff that Sounds Really Cool at the Department of Defense, because I’m sold on this wall-to-wall advanced weapons Wild Weasel package. New roads, education initiatives and health care for the elderly will never get me nearly as fired up as the EA-18’s Full Spectrum Electronic Attack system, which includes ALQ-99 Tactical Jamming System pods and a “Universal Exciter upgrade” (you just know you’d be kicking yourself later if you went with the base Universal Exciter).
    The EA-18 flight simulator is used as a training tool for pilots, and as such it features an almost exact replica of the EA-18 cockpit, with a wraparound video screen for a “windshield.” I’m sure there were a few nifty doodads missing from this non-classified setup, because, like a car with no options, there were a couple of blank spots on the dashboard that in the real thing probably house buttons for the anti-matter beam and sunroof. But I was assured that the essentials were all in place.
    The basic controls are amazingly simple. Almost everything happens through the joystick. You want to go up, pull back. You want to go left, pull left. You want to drop a smart bomb on your annoying neighbor’s house, scroll through your weapons supply and select a bomb with the toggle switch near your thumb. Pull the trigger and in a jiffy you’re making the world safe for democracy.
    After our brief tutorial on working the electronics and flying the plane, Michael and I were ready to head into Iraq and install a new regime our own damn selves (you know they’ve got that scenario programmed into this thing somewhere), but due to our peon civilian security clearance we were relegated to flying around California, dropping bombs on practice targets and shooting missiles at unseen foes. Dammit, Admiral, this ain’t the Delta Shuttle! I want to bag me some Migs! I didn’t enroll in Top Gun Academy to ferry the brass to the carrier and blow up cardboard bunkers. Hot-headed flyboys like myself need bogeys like cornflakes need milk.
    I did get to try landing on an aircraft carrier, which confirmed my suspicion that landing a plane on a moving boat is hard. For instance, one might go too fast and careen over the edge of the flight deck into the water, or come in too low and crash into the side of the ship. I did both. But I also landed it twice, which strikes me as a pretty good percentage for someone whose aircraft expertise is limited to the knowledge that exit-row seats have a little extra legroom.
    Besides my two botched carrier landings, I also pioneered the technique of flying straight through a mountain. I went inverted as I crested a ridge (experienced pilots do this to avoid generating negative G-forces), but while upside-down I forgot that the controls would then work in reverse, and I ended up diving down through the earth and out the other side of the hill. I hope Boeing officials won’t be upset that I’m divulging this astounding EA-18 capability to the world, as the capacity for subterranean flight must provide our pilots with a distinct combat advantage.
    Lacking the aforementioned “Invade Iraq” or “Reduce Toronto to smoldering piles of broken hockey sticks” missions, my other extreme maneuvers included buzzing a McDonald’s on full afterburner (yeah...I’d like fries with that) and diving straight down 21,000 feet before pulling up, which put an impressive 7.5 G’s on the airframe. They’ve got to build ’em strong for mavericks like me.
    There’s no question in my mind that the Navy is going to snap up all the EA-18’s that Boeing can make. What remains to be seen, however, is whether I now know enough about flying one to convince girls that I’m a fighter pilot. I’m thinking... negative, Ghostrider. *