Dennison soars with Blue Angels

University of Montana President George Dennison knew he had crossed an item off his “bucket list” when Navy Blue Angels pilot Lt. Frank Weisser told him to look up.

Only the plane was flying upside down.

“I was looking up like he said, but I was looking down,” Dennison said with a smile.

And that short time spent upside down was the only time during the flight that Dennison’s stomach was slightly aflutter. “I don’t remember any feelings of discomfort,” he said. “Everyone kept telling me, ‘This will be a grueling experience. You’ll get sick.’” But he didn’t. And he’s even got video to prove it.

After his flight with the Blue Angels, the U.S. Navy’s Flight Demonstration Squadron, in August at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Wash., Dennison can now add a tape of his aerial adventure to his video collection. The camera in the cockpit, which was focused on his face, did not provide much to look at, according to Dennison, but it showed, “no evidence of pain,” he again said with a smile.

Dennison — who went to the base with his wife, Jane, who didn’t fly — said there was never any question he would accept the invitation to fly with the Blue Angels. “No one should turn down such an opportunity,” he said.

Before the excitement of the flight, however, he sat through an instructional meeting. “They discussed how to anticipate g-forces during the flight. You tense up your lower body and relax your upper body,” Dennison said.

He experienced almost seven gees during his flight. One g — which is a unit of inertial force on a body subjected to rapid acceleration or gravity — is equal to 32 feet per second at sea level. He said slowing the plane down for landing is where his body felt the most g-force.

The total flight was about 45 minutes. While it took around seven minutes to maneuver the aircraft for takeoff and another five or six to come back after landing, the rest of the time was spent high in the sky. The plane flies at 97 percent of Mach — the speed of sound. So, while it’s not quite supersonic, it moves.

The plane Dennison flew in — which was Bobcat blue and gold, something Dennison said he knew beforehand — was hot to the touch. Because there was no shade, Dennison said, “I felt like I was in a pressure cooker.”

Dennison said he would definitely fly again if given the opportunity, and when asked where the adventure ranks on his list of life’s accomplishments he said, “It’s one that would be on my bucket list.”