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The United States military has a long and storied history of doing some mutual back-scratching with Hollywood, as the Pentagon routinely gives filmmakers access to various parts of its arsenal as long as they’re willing to agree to produce some mild propaganda that requires a seal of approval prior to its release.
This was the case with Top Gun, as the studio behind it was allowed to borrow some planes and aircraft carriers for a subsidized price but was forced to tinker with the script a bit in order to appease the people who granted them a discount.
However, it’s safe to say the deal worked out pretty well for everyone involved, as moviegoers were treated to an absolute classic and the Navy got a solid recruiting tool they could use to lure in people who wanted to pursue a life filled with dogfights and shirtless volleyball.
Part of me wanted to do exactly that after I saw Top Gun for the first time but I eventually realized it wasn’t for me thanks to my general disdain for the military’s hierarchy of authority and the fact that I was gifted (or cursed) with an amount of height that prevents me from sitting in economy and would certainly disqualify me from piloting a fighter jet.
However, I’m still holding out hope that I’ll one day be presented with the opportunity to hop in a cockpit and serve as the Goose to someone else’s Maverick, which is exactly what an unidentified 64-year-old man working as a defense contractor in France got to do about a year ago.
According to Gizmodo, the guy received a surprise from his coworkers when they informed him they’d score him a ride in a Dassault Rafale during a training exercise, which is a pretty dope gift and one he had absolutely no interest in accepting.
However, he ended up strapping himself in to avoid disappointing his fellow employees, and according to a report that was recently released by the French government, he did so with a resting pulse that’s typically reserved for vigorous exercise.
Things didn’t get much better once the plane took off, as it didn’t take him long to start panicking when the ascent began and he instinctively started to search for something to hold onto. He did eventually manage to find an object to grasp, which would’ve been good news if it hadn’t been the handle to trigger the ejection seat that launched him into the air 2,500 feet above the ground.
As if his day wasn’t shitty enough already, he also managed to lose his helmet at some point, but thankfully, the parachute deployed without any issue and he eventually floated to the ground before being taken to the hospital, where examinations showed he’d managed to avoid serious injury.
I can only hope his colleagues just get him a mug or something next time.