Fighter pilots. Adrenaline junkies who live life on the edge, where gravity is so banal they have to multiply it by a factor of nine just to stay awake. You’d imagine then, that when they’re not piloting a 2,000mph missile upside-down they’re driving something pretty spectacular. An AMG-Mercedes, perhaps a Dodge Hellcat, or a hot rod with an engine measured in cubic feet.
Not according to previous bloggee Ralph Savelsberg though, as the Royal Netherlands Air Force pilots of this glorious F-16AM Viper drive… a Renault Trafic van. Um, OK.
It is a beautifully built Renault Trafic van, but it is, nevertheless, still a Renault Trafic van. There’s more to see of the Renault, and the considerably more interesting F-16 Viper fighter jet that accompanies it, at Ralph’s photostream. Take the Highway to the Dreary Zone* via the link above.
I’m pretty sure the pilots don’t actually even drive the van; they are driven. I remember Jeremy Clarkson writing about a discussion he had with a test pilot, in a review of some Corvette variant. The pilot drove a beige Toyota Camry, because a) hegot enough excitement in his job and b) he wanted reliable transportation. That said, Porsche allegedly used to have a dealership right outside of NAS Miramar, famous as the home of Top Gun in the eighties, and in “The Right Stuff” Tom Wolfe wrote that in the fifties more test pilots were killed racing cars (or horses) than flying jets.