F-15E Ride
✓ I EXPERIENCED IT
North Carolina
United States
2017
Adventure & Adrenaline
Once In A Lifetime
AT A GLANCE
Fun
5/5
Physical Effort
5/5
Budget Level
Special Access
Would I Do It Again?
No
THE EXPERIENCE
My F-15E Strike Eagle ride at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base was a three-day process before I ever left the ground.
Day one was medical testing with several different doctors. My interpretation was basically: let’s make sure that if you pass out, you’re coming back. 😂 Once I cleared the medical portion, day two included simulator training, briefings, flight-suit fitting and testing the G-suit.
The G-suit is designed to inflate around your legs and abdomen as G-forces increase, helping keep blood from pooling away from your upper body. I understood what it did in theory. Actually feeling it repeatedly inflate and release while trying to remember the breathing and straining techniques was another story.
The most memorable briefing was the emergency-egress training. There was so much information about what to do if we had to get out of the aircraft that I remember thinking there was absolutely no way I was retaining all of it.
On flight day there were two of us getting rides. During the briefing, my air-traffic-controller brain kicked in and I asked whether we could get an unrestricted climb. In simple terms, ATC can clear an aircraft to climb without intermediate altitude restrictions, allowing a fighter to use much more of its incredible climb performance. That ability to gain altitude extremely quickly is valuable operationally when getting a fighter airborne and into position fast matters.
Experiencing it from inside the aircraft was unreal.
We accelerated down the runway and then climbed so steeply that it felt almost vertical. We hadn’t even used the full runway before we were shooting upward. The closest comparison I have is what I imagine an astronaut feels during launch.
After that, the pilot took me through several maneuvers and progressively increased the G-forces. I reached about 6 G before my vision started closing in. I also briefly got to take the controls.
The entire flight was only around 30 minutes. It felt like forever.
WHAT IT FELT LIKE
I was terrified and excited at exactly the same time.
The unrestricted climb was probably the most surreal part. We went from being on the runway to what felt like shooting almost straight into the sky. It genuinely gave me the closest thing I can imagine to an astronaut-launch feeling.
But one of the strangest things was how calm the flight could feel. The aircraft was ridiculously smooth, I was strapped down in what felt like a million different ways, and it was surprisingly quiet inside. Somehow there were moments that felt almost as peaceful as hang gliding, even though I was in a fighter jet moving at an absurd speed.
Then the G-forces reminded me very quickly that this was not peaceful for my body.
The G-suit repeatedly squeezing and releasing, combined with trying to correctly time the breathing and straining techniques we’d been taught, was exhausting. By the end of roughly 30 minutes, I was completely drained and genuinely ready to be back on the ground.
It remains the best experience of my life. It is also an experience I have absolutely no desire to repeat.
WHAT SURPRISED ME
The biggest surprise was how smooth and quiet everything felt. Beforehand, I think I expected a fighter jet to feel violently chaotic inside. Instead, there were moments when the actual movement of the aircraft felt incredibly smooth because I was secured so tightly.
My stomach didn’t feel like it was constantly being thrown around either—which makes the fact that I still ended up using the barf bag particularly rude. 😂
I was also surprised by how physically exhausting such a short flight could be. Thirty minutes doesn’t sound like much until your body is repeatedly dealing with G-forces, a G-suit inflating around you, breathing techniques, maneuvers and the sensory overload of realizing you’re actually in an F-15. By the end, I understood why fighter pilots train the way they do.
WHAT WENT WELL
The preparation made me feel extremely safe. Between the medical testing, simulator training, equipment fitting, emergency briefings and everything we were told before the flight, I never felt as though anyone was casually throwing me into a fighter jet and hoping for the best.
The pilot was also constantly communicating with me. As the G-forces increased, he kept talking to me and checking how I was doing. One of my favorite little moments had nothing to do with speed or G-forces at all: I got to talk to my own coworkers from the other side of the radio. As an air traffic controller who normally communicated with aircraft from the tower, suddenly being the person inside the aircraft talking back to them was just cool.
I also got to take the controls briefly. Naturally, my thought process was essentially: Well, I’m here now.
I moved the controls hard to the left—my fighter-jet version of putting the pedal to the metal. It was a genuine YOLO moment.
THE MISHAPS
Oh, there were mishaps. 😂
At around 6 G, my field of vision started shrinking. The pilot continued talking to me to gauge how I was doing, and I remember laughing while realizing that my peripheral vision was disappearing. Then I could actually hear myself starting to slur my words. The pilot knew exactly what was happening. I was getting very close to passing out.
Oddly enough, I wasn’t panicking. We’d been warned repeatedly that this could happen, and we’d already gone through medical screening and preparation. I remember thinking the whole thing was almost funny while it was happening.
I also used the barf bag. No shame whatsoever. People from flying operations who came up to our tower had already joked that pilots sometimes considered making the incentive-flight rider sick part of the experience. Apparently my stomach decided not to disappoint them.
The other person flying that day had an even quicker introduction—the other F-15 had to return to base after they became sick following the unrestricted climb.
My final souvenir lasted longer than the flight itself: I had motion sickness for about two days afterward, very similar to the lingering feeling I sometimes get after being on a cruise.
WHO MAY ENJOY THIS
Someone who loves aviation, fighter aircraft, adrenaline or extremely unusual experiences would probably understand immediately why this was so memorable. It is also fascinating for anyone interested in what military aviators physically experience rather than simply what an aircraft looks like from the ground. But I would not describe it as just a fun thrill ride.
The physical component is real. G-forces, motion, pressure from the G-suit, breathing and straining techniques, sensory overload and the possibility of nausea or becoming lightheaded are all part of the experience. If anything, the ride gave me much more appreciation for fighter pilots because they don’t experience these forces once as a bucket-list activity.
This is their profession.
HELPFUL ADVICE
Take every part of the preparation seriously, even the parts that seem excessive before you fly. There was an enormous amount of information during the medical screening, simulator training, equipment fitting, emergency briefing and flight briefing. Once I was actually in the aircraft, I understood why.
Pay particular attention to the instructions for dealing with G-forces. Trying to correctly coordinate your muscle straining and breathing while the G-suit is squeezing you and the aircraft is maneuvering is much harder than listening to someone explain it in a classroom.
Listen to the pilot. Communicate when something starts feeling different. And if they hand you a barf bag?
Keep it close. Pride is free. Cleaning an F-15 probably isn’t.
Also, don’t underestimate how physically tired you may feel afterward. My flight lasted only about 30 minutes, and I was ready to come down by the end.
WOULD I DO IT AGAIN - NOTES
Absolutely not.
And I mean that in the most positive way possible. 😂
This was genuinely the best experience of my life. I felt terrified, excited, peaceful, exhausted and completely amazed—sometimes within minutes of each other. I got an unrestricted climb. I experienced fighter maneuvers and G-forces. I nearly passed out. I vomited. I talked to my coworkers from the opposite side of the radio. I briefly took the controls of an F-15E.
I felt like the main character. And once was enough.
The experience actually increased my appreciation for fighter pilots because I got a tiny glimpse of how physically demanding flying these aircraft can be. The speed, altitude, maneuvers and forces are incredible but experiencing them firsthand also made me perfectly happy to admire fighter jets from the ground from now on.
Best experience ever. Never again.