A lauded pilot with nearly 20,000 hours in the cockpit, Arnold Palmer had the opportunity to take to the skies with some of aviation's greatest pilots when he flew with both the Navy's Blue Angels and the Air Force's Thunderbirds.

With the Blue Angels Arnie was part of a promotional campaign, flying a photographer in Arnie’s own propeller-driven Aero Commander while the fighter jets came in close. With the Thunderbirds, Palmer had the opportunity to fly in an F-16, experiencing what was then the country's cutting-edge fighter. Writing about these experiences in A Golfer's Life, Palmer described another great moment as well: "I was even allowed to help land a military jet on a the aircraft carrier Eisenhower. There's simply no room for error in such a situation. Trying to hit that famous island green at TPC Sawgrass on a Sunday was a piece of cake compared to the challenge of trying to safely set a multimillion-dollar aircraft on a floating runway. No mulligans there."

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