Flight with the Blue Angels

By Melissa Maas/Gator Galaxy

Former North Star administrator, now principal at Southwest, Mr. Mike Gillotti was given the opportunity to fly with the Blue Angels last week. A Navy recruiter reached out to a counselor at Lincoln Southwest, who was “gracious” enough to pass the opportunity to Gillotti. Gillotti had to fill out an application and go through a phone interview in order to be selected. “The whole thing seemed like it was too good to be true, Gillotti said.”Once I pulled my car onto the air base and saw the jet sitting there it got real in a hurry,” said Gillotti

Gillotti said it was the coolest thing he has ever done, but afterwards, he felt like he had been at the gym for three hours. “It was the most physically demanding thing I have ever experienced,” said Gillotti. Gillotti had to fight to keep himself from passing out from the pressure of the G-forces. “At one point we were at 7.1 G’s, and I was working very hard to maintain consciousness.”

There were two times when Gillotti “greyed out” and lost his vision, even though his eyes were wide open. “It was very weird when it happened,” said Gillotti. The former administrator “greyed out,” because his eyes lost a lot of blood pressure from the G-forces. Gillotti flew on plane seven flown by Lt. Tyler Davies. Plane seven holds two passengers.

Gillotti said for one year, that’s Davies’s job. “He is not a part of the demonstration team. He does the Key Influencer ride-alongs, and he is the announcer for the air shows,” said Gillotti. After a year of being Key Influencer, a pilot rotates in as a member of the performance team for two years, then following that they go back as a regular Navy pilot.

Gillotti and Davies rolled, made big loops, and at one point were inverted and dove 10,000 feet Gillotti said.What Gillotti took away from this experience was how physically demanding it is on a pilot’s body, because they do not wear G-suits, and have to learn manually to handle the G-forces. “They have tremendous muscle memory and training to help them combat the effects of flying at those speeds,” said Gillotti. “It was truly a once in a lifetime experience.”