by Rick Reilly [ Rick Reilly writes for SPORTS ILLUSTRATED ]

...Now this message for America's most famous athletes: Someday you may be invited to fly in the backseat of one of your country's most powerful fighter jets. Some of you already have -- John Elway, John Stockton, Tiger Woods -- to name a few.

If you get this opportunity, let me urge you, with the greatest sincerity ... move to Guam. Change your name. Fake your own death. Whatever you do, do not go.
I know. The US Navy invited me to try it.

I was thrilled!

I was pumped!

I was toast !

I should have known when they told me my pilot would be Chip (Biff) King, of Fighter Squadron 213 at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach.

Whatever you're thinking a Top Gun named Chip (Biff) King looks like -- triple it. He's about six-foot, wavy surfer hair, ice-blue eyes, finger-crippling handshake -- the kind of man who wrestles dyspeptic alligators in his leisure time.

If you see this man, run the other way. Fast.

Biff King was born to fly. His father, Jack King, was for years the voice of NASA missions ("..T minus 15 seconds and counting..."; remember ?) Chip would charge the neighborhood kids a quarter each just to hear his dad talk. Jack would wake up from naps, surrounded by nine-year-olds waiting for him to say "We have a liftoff...".

Biff was to fly me in an F-14D Tomcat -- a ridiculously powerful $60million weapon with nearly as much thrust as weight.

I was worried about getting airsick, so the night before the flight I asked Biff if there was something I should eat the next morning. "Bananas", he said.
"For the potassium?" I asked.
"No", Biff said, "because they taste about the same coming up as they do going down."

The next morning, out on the tarmac, I had on my flight suit with my name sewn over the left pocket [no call-sign like Crash or Sticky of Leadfoot - but, still, very cool.] I carried my helmet in the crook of my arm, as Biff had instructed. [ If ever in my life I had a chance to nail Nicole Kidman, this was it.]

A fighter pilot named Psycho gave me a safety briefing and then fastened me into my ejection seat, which, when employed, would "egress" me out of the plane at such a velocity that I would be immediately knocked unconscious.
Just as I was thinking about aborting the flight, the canopy closed over me -- Biff gave the ground crew a thumbs-up, and in minutes we were firing nose-up at 600 mph. We leveled out -- and then canopy-rolled over another F-14.

Those 20 minutes were the rush of my life. Unfortunately, the ride lasted 80. It was like being on the roller coaster at Six Flags over Hell. Only without rails.

We did barrel rolls, snap rolls, loops, yanks, and banks. Sea was sky, and sky was sea. We dived, rose, and dived again, sometimes with a vertical velocity of 10,000 feet per minute. We chased another F-14, and it chased us. We broke the speed of sound.

At 200 feet, we did 90-degree turns at 550 mpg, creating a G-force of 6.5, which is to say, I felt as if 6.5 times my body weight was smashing against me. And I egressed the bananas.

I egressed the pizza from the night before. And the lunch before that. I egressed a box of Milk Duds from the sixth grade. I made Linda Blair look polite.

Because of the G's, I was egressing stuff that did not even want to be egressed. I went through not one sirsick bag, but two.

Biff said I passed out. Twice. I was coated in sweat. At one point, as we were coming in upside-down, in a banked curve on a mock bombing target, and the G's were flatteming me like a tortilla, and I was in and out of consciousness, I realized I was probably the first person in history to throw down.

I used to know cool. Cool was Elway throwing a touchdown pass, or Norman making a five-iron bite. But now, I really know cool.

Cool is guys like Biff; men with cast-iron stomachs and Freon nerves. I wouldn't go up there again for Derek Jeter's little black book, but I'm glad Biff does -- every day, and for less money a year than a rookie reliever makes in a home stand.

A week later, when the spins finally stopped, Biff called. He said he and the fighters had the perfect call-sign for me, and he'd send it on a patch for my flight suit.
What is it? I asked.

"Two Bags".

Don't you dare tell Nicole.