During his flight, Tkachuk reached 9.5 G\u2019s during high-speed maneuvers, meaning he withstood 9.5 times the force of gravity.<\/p>\n
Joining an special group, he later received a “9g” pin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was more scared if I was going to have to throw up or if I was going to blackout,\u201d said Tkachuk, who thankfully made it through the entire session without having to reach for the barf bag. \u201cThere was close call on both. When the G\u2019s hit you, it\u2019s crazy. It\u2019s like nothing I\u2019ve ever felt before. It was cool to be able to do it and so much fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
For his flight, Tkachuk rode with Lt. Col. Tyler “Wrath” Keener, an experienced fighter pilot with the Air Force.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was ready for it,\u201d Keener said proudly of his co-pilot.<\/p>\n
At one point during the flight, when there was plenty of airspace to play with,\u00a0Tkachuk was handed over control.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe jet handles in a very crazy way,\u201d Kenner said. \u201cYou hardly put any pressure on the stick, and it moves. Everybody has a similar reaction. You say, \u2018Alright, you\u2019re flying.\u2019 Then the second they make a move it\u2019s \u2018Whoa!\u2019 He got comfortable quick. He started doing rolls and pretty heavy g turns. Matthew was all about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite holding his own at the helm of the F-16, Tkachuk doesn\u2019t believe he has a promising future in aviation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I could be a pilot,\u201d he said while cracking a grin below his aviator sunglasses. \u201cI\u2019m going to leave that up to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Making a pitstop before returning to the airport, Keener flew Tkachuk over his house in Fort Lauderdale.<\/p>\n
Becoming a first-time father in April, Tkachuk expects he likely woke his baby girl, Camille, up from her nap.<\/p>\n
“Hopefully one day she thinks I’m pretty cool,\u201d the young dad said.<\/p>\n
Already a two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Panthers, Tkachuk became a household name well beyond South Florida when he helped the United States capture its first gold medal in men\u2019s hockey since 1980 with a thrilling win in overtime against Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n
A full-circle moment, Keener recalls waking up before sunrise to watch the historic win. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re a hockey fan in general, you are a Matthew Tkachuk fan because of how he plays the game,\u201d Keener said. \u201cAs an American, watching him wear the Red, White and Blue and win for our country and then getting him up in a Red, White and Blue jet, you couldn\u2019t ask for a better story.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During his flight, Tkachuk reached 9.5 G\u2019s during high-speed maneuvers, meaning he withstood 9.5 times the force of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-267586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}