LIKE NOTHING ON EARTH by Christopher J. Lynch
LIKE NOTHING ON EARTH
by Christopher J. Lynch
One man’s crazy adventure was more than just a ‘bucket list’ check-off,
it was part of his long term planning
After several delays (Corona-virus), false starts, and rescheduling, I finally received the email I had been anxiously awaiting: My flight on the Zero G plane, aka; The Vomit Comet, was a go! I took a quick shower, grabbed a few things and headed out the door for the Long Beach Airport, not sure what I was getting myself into. The date was August 16th. 2020
Zero G, or low gravity flights had been a staple of astronaut training since the dawn of the space age in the early sixties. Besides familiarizing astronauts with the effects – and the downsides, of working in a weightless environment, plenty of science experiments had been performed on the parabolic flights as well as the filming of several scenes for the movie Apollo 13. I was not a scientist, a movie star, or even an astronaut. I was just an ordinary person who had ponied up the several thousand dollars it cost to experience something that few on earth have or ever will.
I arrived about an hour early at my destination (can you guess I was excited?) and had learned along the way that KTLA had a reporter and cameraman that were going along on my flight. Had they somehow gotten a scoop that I was going to be on the flight and they wanted to do a story on me? Oh yeah, I forgot; I’m not a movie star.
I quickly familiarized myself with my surroundings at Ross Aviation located at the west end of the Long Beach Airport and soon spotted the KTLA crew outside near to the Go Zero G jet, a specially modified 727: no widows, padded interior, accelerometers to help the pilots in their deep dive to achieve micro- or zero gravity, and most ominously: no bathroom on board! Losing my breakfast in zero gravity on the Vomit Comet might be one thing, but floating around and bouncing off the walls with a full bladder might be another thing altogether.
I expressed some of my prosaic concerns to the reporter covering the story, Lauren Lyster, as well as the fact that besides being a bucket list item for me it was also part of my own personal training (I had already put my deposit down to fly into space on Virgin Galactic’s Space Plane and wanted to see how I would fare in the weightless environment). I guess that makes me at least a ‘wanna-be’ astronaut. To my surprise, she interviewed me! Besides achieving zero gravity today, maybe I would get thirty seconds of fame as well. But for right now, all I wanted to do was to climb-dive-and float!
After the remaining passengers, 14 in total, arrived, we were ushered into our briefing and to get our gear: Zero G flight suit, mask, Zero G socks to wear in the weightless environment, and to have our breakfast, which we had been told was specifically designed for this flight. Before a Zero G flight, you are not to have alcohol the day before, no breakfast that morning, and no coffee.
The breakfast consisted of mostly pastries and breadstuffs and came with a bottle each of apple juice and water. I carefully monitored my liquid intake and ate only what they offered. I was to learn later it was a sound strategy.
We also were each provided a Dramamine pill about the size of a dime. I had brought my own pills along as an insurance policy, but wondered if the jumbo sized pills might actually be the turbo-charged – not for ordinary sea-sickness – this is for space, variety! And so I popped it into my mouth and chased it with the apple juice.
Micro, or zero g is achieved when any object – in this case a plane, falls at a speed close to or right at the speed of the downward force of gravity. This is easy enough to experience yourself when you go down in a fast elevator. If you were to stand on a bathroom scale while you did this, you would notice that you ‘lose’ weight - fleeting as it may be. I had only achieved zero G one other time in my life, in a sailplane (glider). The sensation was only about a second and a half, but it was a thrill I won’t forget. (video).
The plane achieves micro and zero g by flying a series of parabolic maneuvers, or steep climbs and dives. Imagine a roller coaster with its hills and valleys. The difference was, this roller coaster in the sky would be flying at 500 MPH and diving over 10,000 feet at a crack!
The briefing consisted of pretty much what to expect from the flight. Each of us had been previously given a link to a 15 minute training video explaining how it would go and so I already felt fairly well versed.
We would take our seats at the far back of the plane (6 rows total, 6 seats across) and fly out to our designated FAA airspace to perform the parabolas. Pretty standard stuff. Once there, we would move into our fully padded designated area forward of the seats and take our positions lying on our backs. A flight director would be in constant contact with the flight deck and tell us how long before we would achieve micro, or zero G.
When we did, we could bounce, float and otherwise have a blast in zero g for about 22 seconds at a stretch. But when the flight director called out, “Feet down! Feet down!” we were to immediately touch down and reassume the position on our back until the next parabolic cycle.
A few minutes later, we took our final bathroom breaks, went through TSA screening and climbed onto the aircraft and took our seats.
The flight out to the designated flight corridor took about 40 minutes and was uneventful except for when each passenger – and I mean each passenger, were handed a barf bag to keep on them at all times. I guess nothing was going to be left to chance on the Vomit Comet!
The first parabola was not full zero gravity but ‘Mars Gravity’ or 1/3 of our body weight. This was designed to ease us into the weightless environment and even it was fun! I weigh about 230 pounds, and so I effectively became about 77 pounds instantaneously. Even though it wasn’t full zero g, the effect was that you could bounce with ease all the way up the padded ceiling of the plane.
“Feet down! Feet down!”
We retook our supine positions wherever we could find and waited for the next parabola, which would be ‘Moon gravity’ or 1/6 of our body weight.
As soon as we crested the top of the parabola and headed down, my weight plummeted again, this time to a featherweight 36 pounds! The feeling was incredible! If it took a slight push of my leg to fly to the ceiling with Mars gravity, this barely took a toe to launch me!
“Feet down! Feet down!”
The big moment was upon us; Zero G! I waited anxiously as the flight director called out the time. “Two minutes…One minute…thirty seconds!”
And then there we were: all of the weight off of our backs and legs and with just a tiny push of the hands, floating upward to the ceiling. Besides being effortless, you also realize that there is no braking in zero g, and very little control. You put your hand out to stop you from hitting the ceiling or the wall and it pushes you right back in the other direction. Newton’s third law; “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
The experience was akin to being in a swimming pool and floating but with no water and no resistance. In fact, one of the rules is to not try to ‘swim.’ You are not going to move, and you will probably kick somebody in the face with your stockinged feet.
“Feet down! Feet down!”
Darn it! Twenty-two seconds is too quick! Wait for the next one.
By the time we had worked through about several more parabolas, a couple of people had already gotten sick, but luckily I hadn’t. In fact, I felt as completely at home in the environment as a fish in water. This gave me a good boost of confidence as I did not want to ruin my upcoming space adventure on the Virgin plane because of nausea.
By now, I felt I had become a seasoned weightless traveler and focused my mind on the sensory experience. Other than listening to the fight director call out the time to zero g, I had learned to anticipate it by just listening to the throttling back of the jet’s engines. Then I would just lay there, and feel the burden of all my earthly weight leave me. The experience was akin to having a dream where you feel yourself floating up out of bed. Or, on a more spiritual level, dying and having an out of body experience.
In the end, we did a total of fifteen parabolas: 1 mars, 1 moon and 13 zero gravity. At one point, the crew even handed out bags of candy for you to try to capture in your mouth. Boy, was that difficult; there was candy floating all over the place!
And on our final zero g parabola, we were introduced to water in the weightless environment, which forms into perfect spheres that we tried - again unsuccessfully, to capture. Even after it was over, the floating H2O added insult to injury.
At, “Feet down! Feet down!” all of the suspended water began to fall in the cabin like rain, landing on us. We all had a great laugh.
After the final parabola, we all reluctantly returned to our seats in the back of the plane for the short flight home. I took the time to contemplate and to savor my amazing adventure, hopefully not a once in a lifetime one.
We touched down at Long Beach International Airport forty minutes later. The local time was 2:44, the temperature was 86°, and the gravity, unfortunately, was 1.
Christopher J. Lynch is a South Bay native and author of the One Eyed Jack crime novel series about a professional blackmailer who operates in and around the South Bay. He experienced his weightless flight with the company, Go-Zero-G. https://www.gozerog.com/home/