Fight's On

Some of you might have noticed that I have a just a teeny tiny bit of interest in aviation. In particular, fighter jets. Yes, I confess to having been bitten by the naval aviation bug. It started innocently enought with Rhythms ... nah, there was nothing innocent about it. Lex clearly and cleanly hooked me.

Of course, I have also been rather hooked on Jetstream lately. And I do believe that I have now developed a new level of respect for Lex and his merry band of brothers. Of course, I've had a lot of respect for what he does did as a fighter pilot for quite a while but I'm thinking maybe he made it sound just a little too easy. Despite his great ability to put you in the cockpit and keep your heart in your throat most of the time, it wasn't until I watched the latest episode of Jetstream last night that I felt I really started to get just a bit of the sense of what it takes to to do what he does.

It took watching the rookies get their first few lessons of BFM (Basic Flight Maneouveres) [much of it from their point of view in the HUD (heads up display)] to really make me shake my head and go 'Huh'? Half the time the students ouldn't even find the bandit on the HUD. Needless to say, neither could I. And you know, as fun as it all sounds (and it really does), I am reminded that even as a kid I've never even really liked roller coasters. Or any of those other wild amusement park rides. Not that that keeps me from desperately wanting to take flight with Lex in his latest adventure, mind you.

But as I've said before, the series is pretty cool. There are a couple of nice sites for the show which offer some good video. On the right hand side of this page you will find short excerpts from the second last episode which are pretty well done and look fairly decent in full scream mode. This is the series' main page [note that this page takes a while to load] which also has some neat stuff, including the ability to watch that same episode online in its entirety, bonus footage and, for any interested, a game that I haven't checked out. Unfortunately, on both sites the most recent episode from last night (which showed the BFMs) isn't up yet but I imagine it will be in the next few days. That last episode, when it's up, will definitely be worth checking out.

Update: My apologies to my international readers (yeah, all 2 of them!). As was pointed out to me at The Flight Deck yesterday, neither the videos nor the full episodes on the Jetstream pages can be viewed outside Canada. Licensed only in Canada, you say? Sorry ... sucks to be you!