F-15 Strike Eagle
Fighter
McDonnell Douglas
So fuck you, I’ve had enough. All you tough guy gangsta rapper, public enemy nitwits can all just go take a flying fuck at the moon. OK? Everybody wants to be a tough guy. Everybody wants to intimidate everybody else. Everybody sneers and scowls at everybody else. Enough already. You want tough? We got tough. Tough enough to lay waste to you and your whole damn sorry ass gangsta neighborhood. What the fuck is it with people that causes them to place extreme toughness on a pedestal while at the very same time denigrating those hellish machines that embody perfect toughness? If we’re gonna play this role folks, then let’s play it out to the very end, OK?
And so, to the F-15. Nice piece of machinery. Really cool. Packs a helluva wallop, too. Strap your ass into this motherfucker and sit tight while the highly-trained, paid killer, ramps up the turbines and mutters incomprehensibly back and forth with some guy in a control tower somewhere. Hit it, Riddle! KaPLOWEY! G Forces like you’ve never seen in your sorry life kick you squarely in the ass as the damn thing lurches down the runway. You think your go-fast, super sport, nitwit hotrod has ass? I’ll tell you what has ass. An F-15 has ass. And that’s just while the motherfucker’s still in contact with the fucking ground. Mister pilot is in a puckish mood. So, as you sit back there in the rear seat, wondering what the hell has kicked you into the middle of next week, as the machine forces the ground away beneath you, he decides to test your tough guy quotient. BrrrOOWWFF! And as if you were shot from some kind of spring-loaded practical joke box, your ass is snapped around to aim directly at the ground as your disbelieving face is aimed straight motherfucking up at a rapidly deepening blue sky. Bang! Next stop, 30,000 feet.
What the hell’s that all about? Mister pilot merely grunts in acknowledgement that you’re still back there and still alive. You’re not the first dummy he’s taken for a little ride. So let’s stop here and review, shall we? This damn thing is the mother of all tough guy appliances. Beats hot cars and street sweeper shotguns coming and going. Just the machine itself, with Holy Shit brand gatling gun, is more than a match for any posturing, posing, lousy English-accented, tough guy you’d care to call up on a dark night. And it has extras. Lotsa extras. There’s shit hanging under the pylons on the wings that will put the serious hurtin’ on everybody in the whole damn area code. “Don’t pull the yellow handle,” says the pilot. No problem, boss man. I ain’t touchin’. Or the red one either.
Thirty thousand feet, straight and level, impossibly high above the local weather, and the bastard at the wheel says, “Ok, you fly it.” Do how!?! “Just hold the stick steady and ease it through whatever maneuvers you want to. I’ll be here to bail us out if need be.” Cool beans. “This handle?” “Yep, that one.” “Ok, here we go.” And with a deceptively light motion against the stick, the whole kit and caboodle rotates around its longitudinal axis while serenely nipping along at five hundred miles an hour. You’ve rolled the damn thing! “Not bad,” intones the pilot. I’ll say! What else does this thing do? A little left, with pedal motion to match, and you’re screaming through a four-G turn. Small beer for the guy who steers it around for a living on a daily basis, but incredibly exhilarating for somebody who’s spent their entire life on the ground. “Yeah! Is there any shit in my pants? Who cares? What’d this thing cost? Nevermind.”
And so, against the lapis lazuli ceiling, you point your F-15 first this way, and then that. “Time’s up, gotta go home,” comes the crackle in your headphones. Damn. Too soon. Way WAY too soon. You relinquish the controls to the guy who knows how to fly the damn thing and suddenly the ground is gathering size and definition as it hurls itself up at you. Flare for touchdown, bump, roll, taxi, stop. Pshit. Not nearly enough time. Now you know why the guy who flies it went through such a godallmighty bunch of shit just to be able to get turned loose with it every so often. Hmm… yeah, I’d probably sign on as a mercenary techno-killer too, if they’d just let me have my way with this thing every so often. Fuck you, gangsta rap assholes. I know what tough is, and it sure the hell ain’t you or your drive-by buddies.
