Diversions

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If you think all the excitement has gone out of flying, try spending an afternoon with Fighter Combat International (fightercombat.com). Based at Williams Gateway—a small airport in Mesa, Arizona—the company offers 45-minute flights piloted by former U.S. top guns and air-combat instructors, for $345 and up. You'll climb into a German-made Extra 300L aircraft—a plane purpose-built for aerobatic stunts—and hang on tight as your pilot takes you on knuckle-whitening maneuvers at speeds of up to 250 m.p.h. There's even a chance to engage in mock dogfights, complete with the sound of simulated gunfire and the release of plumes of smoke when you score a "hit" on an enemy aircraft. After the fray, pilots will demonstrate some of the slicker moves required in air combat, including tail slides, inverted spins and loop-the-loops, subjecting you to more eye-popping G-forces than you ever thought possible. And just before you rejoin terra firma, you'll enjoy a fly-past at 30 feet above the terminal deck, so that friends and relatives can take pictures. The flight home by Boeing or Airbus may seem interminably tedious by comparison.