joy riding?

[kiwi lover]

I was reading an article about the astronaut-kidnapping case, where Lisa Nowak attacked Colleen Shipman.. because of jealousy re: her relationship to Bill Oefelein, another astronaut.
Anyway, in the article it stated the Oefelein had been relieved of his astronaut duties for the affair, but also mentioned he took Nowak on a romantic get-away weekend one time, in an F-16!
I was under the impression if you were in the military, you couldn't just grab a fighter like you can rent a 152 and take off for the weekend.. that the government jets only went out for specific reasons - combat or training basically.
So either the reporter was mistaken and it's an error, or what??
I'm too old to go into the military so it doesnt matter, but if I could, and flew fighters, is there a way I could take a top of the line fighter and give my girlfriend a ride, whether for an hour or joyriding or to go somewhere for the weekend?? Just never heard of this before so wanted to know if it was reporting error or what the deal was

[umd81]

I think astronauts use T-38's for training and for transportation across the country. Maybe they can use them whenever they want to do some "proficiency training." I'm sure the F-16 part of the article is a mistake.

It doesn't work that way in the military though. Maybe that's one of the extra perks of being an astronaut.

[Hacker15e]

Pretty sure that's a reporting error and that they meant T-38.

In the active military, no, you can't just go grab a jet for the weekend and take your friends for a ride. Definitely NOT.

If your girlfriend was a fellow pilot in the squadron, though, I'm sure you could have a getaway weekend in an active fighter unit. It doesn't happen too often, but sometimes pilots are given the opportunity to fly weekend cross countries for proficiency.

[Blackhawk]

There is a difference between not permitted and not doing. I know of several cases where wives, girl friends and kids have been taken on unauthorized rides in military aircraft. In some cases the pilots are caught, in others they are not. I know of one case that ended very badly (the Blackhawk in the Bahamas, both wives killed on a joy ride); and another case where two flight students got caught picking up their girl friends in a UH-1 (they picked them up at an airport where a bunch of IPs keep their airplanes).