Spreading His Wings : Terry Collins Manages to Hold His Own With Blue Angels

Used to be, Terry Collins was only a blue Angel in September.

But Friday the weight on his shoulders had nothing to do with a late-season Angel collapse and everything to do with the negative Gs that forced him up into the torso harness as Navy Lt. Keith Hoskins yanked his F/A-18 Hornet into an inverted dive.

Collins spent 40 minutes juking about in a cloudless sapphire sky above El Centro Naval Air Facility with the Blue Angels pilot and did something many of the acrobatic flight squadron’s support crew admittedly can’t: He managed to hang onto his breakfast . . . even though it was only a bagel.

After pulling up to six Gs, hitting speeds of 650 mph, completing a loop, a simulated bombing run and some antiaircraft evasive maneuvers, Collins signaled a thumbs up after the strike fighter landed. When the canopy retracted, crew chief Ed Primeau hopped up on the wing, helped Collins remove his helmet and harness and then said, “Go ahead and stand up.”

“What makes you think I can?” Collins asked.

Collins gingerly climbed down, his tanned face a bit paler than normal but still lit by a toothy grin.

“It’s absolutely unbelievable,” he said. “The rush is awesome. The feeling is unreal.”

Turning to Hoskins, he said, “Maybe we can give you the opportunity of facing a [Roger] Clemens fastball one day.”

Before his wild-blue adventure, Collins, his girlfriend Barbara Sansone, a couple of Angel officials and a small group of media were treated to a practice run by the Blue Angels, who will make 36 performances across the country between March and November this year.

Standing on the tarmac in the middle of the base as six Hornets in tight formation thundered overhead, Collins took a cell-phone call from General Manager Bill Bavasi. “Right now, I’m standing on the runway while the Blue Angels are doing a demonstration,” Collins said, his eyes still on the heavens, “and they just did a maneuver I’m not going to do.”

Collins listened intently to his preflight briefing and the details of how to keep from blacking out. When Primeau explained what instruments and controls he could not touch, Collins assured him that “there will be very little touching.”

He looked a bit concerned when the crew chief gave a lengthy lecture of what he might have to do in case of a “bonus ride,” the Navy’s euphemism for an ejection. But Collins appeared most uneasy when public affairs officer Dave Fitz recalled a recent visit from Yankee Manager Joe Torre, saying, “Everybody wanted to try on his [World Series championship] ring.”

It was watching the practice session before his flight that made Collins the most apprehensive, but soon he was lost in the thrill ride. Just a few feet off the ground, Hoskins pointed the nose of the Hornet straight up, rocketing to 30,000 feet in less than a minute with the two roaring engines providing 32,000 pounds of thrust on afterburner.

“It gives you a great perspective on the reactions these guys have,” Collins said. “The bombing run was amazing. Everything happens so fast. The things they do at the speed they do them, and under stress, it’s unbelievable.”

Angel players Troy Percival, Jim Edmonds and Troy Glaus recently flew out and landed on an aircraft carrier. Collins had been busy and was unable to get in on the action, but he mentioned to Assistant General Manager Tim Mead that flying in a fighter had always been his dream. Within three weeks, Mead had arranged Friday’s flight with the Blue Angels.

Collins considered trying to become a Marine pilot while a student at Eastern Michigan during the war in Vietnam--”If I had to go, I wanted to be sure I wasn’t walking around in that jungle”--but he decided to maintain his student deferment.

“My grandfather was in the Marines for 35 years and one of his buddies who was making a recruiting trip called me in my dorm room,” Collins said. “I took a preliminary test, but it was very difficult.

“He called back a couple of days later and said I passed. I said, ‘What, you only have to get one answer right?’ ”

Hoskins, who gives all of the Blue Angels’ special guests the ride of their lives, thought Collins was really a down-to-earth guy. “He’s just a great guy,” Hoskins said. They spent much of the flight discussing the importance of teamwork in their respective lines of work--well, Collins said Hoskins did most of the talking--but the flight ended with an argument of sorts.

“He said he thought he had the best job in the world,” Collins said, adjusting his new Blue Angels cap. “I said I might have to argue with that because I think I’ve got it.”

And if Collins’ can get his hands on just the right accessory--a ring like Torre’s would be perfect--to match his new hat, he’ll really be flying high.