‘My vision went dark’: CNN reporter experiences 6G-force before hitching a fighter jet ride

Suwon, South Korea CNN —

It took more than 40 years, but I finally lived my “Top Gun” dream.

For an hour and 40 minutes, in the back seat of a South Korean Air Force F-4 Phantom, I was “Goose” from the classic 1980s movie – and it was so worth the wait.

As a kid, I loved newspapers and writing, so journalism was a natural choice for a career.

But I also loved military stuff – especially military aviation – and nothing exemplified that better than the stories of US Navy aviators in the Battle of Midway, where the US turned the tide against Japan in World War II by sinking four of its aircraft carriers.

After receiving my journalism degree in 1981, I thought I could still try flying for the military. So I went to see a Navy recruiter and took the physical. Part of that was a colorblindness test. There were pinpricks of light across a dark room, and I had to say which were red and which were green.

I failed miserably, an automatic disqualifier for a modern pilot.

So it was off to the civilian working world, the pilot dream shattered – until a few months ago, when the South Korean Air Force said a CNN representative could take part in a farewell flight of its F-4 Phantom fleet.

Four South Korean F-4 fighter jets fly in formation on May 8, 2024, during a commemorative final flight of the aircraft.

Memories of the Phantom

If there were a perfect match for me to make my fighter dream come true, it had to be the Phantom.

It first flew in 1958, a year before I was born, and was truly the military aircraft of my youth, appearing almost nightly on the news as the workhorse of the US air fleet in the Vietnam War. In the late 1960s to early 1970s, it was the plane the US Navy Blue Angels and US Air Force Thunderbirds flight