100 Things To Do You’ve Never Heard Of #032 See the world at 300m per second

The ride of your life at Rockhampton Airport

Ever since Top Gun roared across cinema screens in 1986, there’s been a certain sector of the community (loosely defined as “males”) that has wondered what it’d be like to take that highway to the danger zone and flick round the sky at 1000km/h. It’s a dream that’s beyond all but a tiny, tiny fraction of society. Unless you count the experience offered by Mig Jet Adventures, which allows you to come aboard a Polish-built MiG 15 for the ride of your life.

“We begin the experience with a brief history of the aircraft and its previous life when it engaged Sabre jets over Korea,” says pilot and owner Richard McDonald.

The purpose-built USSR combat MiG 15’s top speed is 1170km/h. With a wingspan of only 10m, you feel as though you’re strapped to a missile.

“It’s basically one enormous turbine engine,” adds McDonald.

Full Monty packages (an all-out thrill ride) are $2300, which buys you 25min of flight time and an hour of prep. Most of the high-speed cruising and aerobatic manoeuvres are done off the coast near Great Keppel Island – 25km away from Rockhampton, which takes about 60sec to reach. Once you’ve wrapped your head around that, we suggest you decline the free tea and coffee offered. Unless you’d like to be wearing it at some point during the flight.

WHERE // From Rockhampton Airport in Qld. (07) 4921 1525 or www.migjet.com

DID YOU KNOW? // Top Gun was riddled with tiny errors. Eg: when you take a Mig Jet flight, please don’t embarrass yourself by calling everything a “bogey” like they do in the movie. A bogey is an unidentified aircraft that, once identified, is either a “friendly”, a “bandit” (non-friendly) or a “hostile” (non-friendly that may be fired at).