Minium: ODU Football Coach Ricky Rahne Rode To 40,000 Feet, Broke the Sound Barrier in Navy Jet

By Harry Minium

NORFOLK, Va. – As a kid growing up in Morrison, Colorado, Ricky Rahne was fascinated with Chuck Yeager, the late Air Force test pilot and World War II flying ace who broke the sound barrier.

He read books about Yeager and was enthralled by the 1983 movie, “The Right Stuff,” which chronicled the Mercury Space program and included a graphic depiction of pilots crashing and dying while trying to break the sound barrier.

“I always admired Chuck Yeager,” Rahne said. “And I wondered what it would be like to fly faster than the speed of sound.

“How would that feel?”

On August 14, at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, the Old Dominion football coach found out exactly how it feels.

Rahne climbed into the back of an F/A-18F Super Hornet with Commander Dustin Peverill Commanding Officer, Strike Fighter Squadron 195, at the throttle, and took off into the wild blue yonder.

Commander Peverill immediately pulled back on the throttle and within seconds, they ascended to nearly 40,000 feet. Rahne said he nearly passed out when his body was pushed back into his seat by the force of four Gs.

He then took Rahne on the trip of a lifetime, a 45-minute excursion that took them over the Atlantic Ocean, the Outer Banks and Eastern Shore. They broke the sound barrier not once, but four times. They searched for ships over the ocean and avoided some thunderstorms and he treated Rahne to a panoramic view of Hampton Roads.

At one point, Peverill flew 1,500 feet above the ocean at 500 miles per hour, just to give Rahne a feel for how really fast they were going.

“That part of the flight was absolutely amazing,” Rahne said. “I really got a sense for how fast we were moving. I can’t begin to describe how fast we were going.”

As they approached Oceana’s tarmac, Peverill told Rahne he was going to do a “touch” landing to simulate a carrier landing gone awry. His wheels lightly touched the ground, then he pulled the stick back and again, they took off with the force of four Gs painfully coursing over Rahne’s body.

Asked how Rahne fared, Peverill replied with one of the greatest quotes I’ve ever heard.

“He did great,” Peverill said. “He stayed awake the whole time.

“And he didn’t puke.”

Not throwing up, Rahne said, “that was my first, second and third goal.”

A video of that day was released online on Monday to coincide with ODU’s Military Appreciation week during which the military will be honored before and during three Monarch athletic events.

Video of Rahne's flight on a Navy jet

The ODU men’s basketball team hosts Norfolk State on Tuesday, the women’s basketball team meets Delaware on Wednesday and on Thursday night, under the glare of national television, the football team hosts Troy.

The 7:30 p.m. game will be televised by ESPN, which will also broadcast its daily SportsCenter from 2 p.m. until 3 p.m. from Kaufman Mall.

Located just a few miles south of the Norfolk Naval Base, the world’s largest naval facility, ODU has close ties to the military, with more than 960 students, faculty and staff members each having served in the military or set to serve through membership in the ROTC program.

This year’s military appreciation week coincides with the 250^th anniversary of the United States Navy.

Naval Commander Frank Bonner, the fixed wing operations officer for the Naval Air Force Atlantic, was the person who made Rahne’s flight possible, and he did so for a reason. He said football and Naval aviation have much in common – it takes a ton of teamwork from young people, some right out of high school, and those hard-working young people are largely unsung.

He wants Americans to know more about what Naval aviators, and the hundreds of mechanics, technicians and other support personnel, actually do.

“I don’t think people have a true appreciation for what it takes to do what we do,” Commander Bonner said. “There’s a high level of thinking required at every job.

“It takes a lot of very young people to get an aircraft airborne. So many are there working not very long after high school. We have pilots trusting their lives to how well that maintenance is done.

“And just imagine how it is on an aircraft carrier, in constrained spaces with a ship moving. What our young people do here is amazing.”

Ibid for the pilots we met. Peverill flew a jet provided by the “Red Rippers,” a nickname that dates back to 1927, when Naval aviation was just getting its start. It is the Navy’s oldest continuously active fighter squadron and has served over the last century on more than 30 aircraft carriers.

As pilots from the Red Rippers mingled with a dozen or so ODU officials, we learned they had just returned from combat missions in the Middle East. Yes, these pilots do put their lives on the line for their country.

And they do so with a ton of trust.

“Every single nut and bolt on an aircraft has to be put together properly,” Peverill said. “We trust everyone out there working to do that.”

Rahne lost two pounds of sweat on the flight and said his body felt like he’d been in a fight with Muhammad Ali with his hands tied behind his back.

Asked what was most surprising about the flight, Rahne said: “At times, it hurt.”

And that, Peverill, is what most people don’t understand about flying a fighter jet – it is nothing like the experience of getting on a United Airlines flight to New York.

“It hurts and the reason why is, well, do the math,” he said. “If you take a 200-pound person and the aircraft is pulling seven Gs, that 200 pound body now weighs 1,400 pounds. Your bone structure and ligaments weren’t built to take that.”

Even holding the throttle is painful.

“It feels like somebody’s shoving a knife into your forearm because everything is compressed,” he said. “The capillaries start to burst, and the bone structure just has so much pressure on it.”

Peverill, 49, was a football player at Stafford High School in Northern Virginia who attended Virginia Tech when Michael Vick took the Hokies to the national championship game. He’s a rabid college football fan and was eager to take Rahne for a spin.

He spent about five hours in all with Rahne that day, and the two emerged as friends. They’ve exchanged phone numbers and he’s since been on ODU’s campus twice and will attend Thursday’s game.

He will tailgate with the Monarchists in the blue lot, across Hampton Boulevard from S.B. Ballard Stadium, if you’d like to meet him.

“ODU is my team now,” he said, and then added with a smile, “except when you play my Hokies.”

Rahne had to undergo a ton of training before he was allowed to climb into the cockpit. First, he had to pass a physical to make sure he was able to withstand the physical effects of flying. Then came classroom time where he was schooled on how to use all of the emergency gear.

Finally, he went to the Naval Air Station in Norfolk to undergo water survival training. He had to pass a swim test and then show he can tread water. Then, he dressed in full pilot gear, helmet included, and jumped back into the water, where he had to tread water while also blowing up his lifejacket.

“Ricky was surrounded by a bunch of 20 years olds, men and women half his age,” said Harry McBrien, the former Marine captain who was Rahne’s sponsor for the swim survival training.

“And he was determined that he was going to do as well or better than all of those kids around him.”

Then, he underwent training on how to breathe, and not to breathe, when your body is hit with G forces. Basically, you do a lot of holding your breath.

A retired Virginia Beach Police captain, McBrien has done so much to bring ODU and the military together. It began five years ago when he brought the Marines’ Toys for Tots program on campus.

He asked ODU officials if they would allow him to bring some amphibious assault vehicles on campus to fill with toys. ODU said yes and ever since, he has helped ODU with the military. He has been responsible for half a dozen flyovers by military aircraft before games, and was the person who reached out to Commander Bonner.

The Toys for Toys tradition continues Thursday night. Bring a toy to the game and put it in one of the vehicles behind the south end zone and help make Christmas a better day for a needy child.

CLICK HERE to read profile of Harry McBrien

Someone also needed to persuade Rahne, whose time is limited, to undergo all of the training and testing necessary and then climb into a jet. That task was left to Carolyn Crutchfield, ODU’s executive senior associate athletic director.

“Carolyn Crutchfield was pretty insistent,” Rahne said. “And I want to thank her for that.

“She pushed me in a very nice manner. She worked with me and the Navy until we found a schedule that worked for everyone.”

Jennifer Rahne, Ricky’s wife, was on the tarmac waiting when Rahne emerged from the flight. It had been a long day, and a long trip, and she was a little anxious as the flight dragged on longer than most of us expected.

When he stepped down off the ladder, he was dripping with sweat and rubber-legged.

But that didn’t stop Jennifer from hugging and kissing her husband.

Rahne has an uncle who is a retired admiral who once floated the idea of him flying with the Blue Angels. Jennifer Rahne quickly put an end to that proposal.

"She was very adamantly opposed to it," he said. "Our kids were younger then.

"This time, when I told her, she was supportive right away. Very supportive. And I'm glad she was there. That was pretty awesome."

Jennifer acknowledges to being a little surprised at how exhausted her husband was following the flight.

"It took a lot out of him," she said. "Ricky went home and went to sleep.

"It really took a couple of days for him to fully recover.”

Days later, as he and Peverill were being interviewed by Ted Alexander, the voice of ODU, Rahne gushed with admiration and appreciation for the Navy.

“It was an amazing experience,” he said. “I’m very grateful because I know this is something that very few people get to do. When I was in the fifth grade and reading books about Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier, now I’ve done what he did. A little differently, obviously, but it was really amazing.”

Rahne said he gained an appreciation for the support staff at Oceana.

“The amount of people who helped me get all of the gear on, and that took a long time. It was just amazing to see all of them work,” Rahne said.

“I think pilots are like the quarterback in football. They get a lot of the credit but the number of people who helped get that thing going, and don’t get all that much credit, is unbelievable.”

He also gained an appreciation for Peverill, who is robustly patriotic.

“He’s a commander and pretty straight-laced,” Rahne said. “But when it was just us, up in the air, you could feel the joy he has for what he does.

“For a football coach, that’s a special thing, because we feel the same joy.”

Asked what the 250^th anniversary of the Navy meant to him, Peverill replied: “Two hundred and fifty years of freedom. We make it happen every day. That’s what the Navy is about. We provide freedom, not just for the United States, but for the world.

“I wear the flag proudly on my shoulder every day. It’s a privilege to do that. I don’t want to do anything else in the world. This is what I was born to do.

“I have some favorite days in the Navy and flying with Coach Rahne was one of them. I was so impressed with ODU and how his team works together.

“College football and Naval aviation really do have a lot in common.”

Minium is ODU's Senior Executive Writer for Athletics. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram

To see past stories from Minium, CLICK HERE