Ace Combat's director has been saying 'hey, we want to ride in one of these jets' for 30 years, but he's still never gotten the chance

The face of Ace Combat, Kazutoki Kono, has been working on the game series for a very long time. One of his earliest game credits is 1997's Ace Combat 2 for the PlayStation—he's worked his way up to the role of series brand director from his initial contributions to that game as part of the art team, making textures and bits of the UI. And yet in all that time, across the development of almost a dozen games about doing Top Gun-style stunts in machines that represent the pinnacle of human engineering, he's never once gotten to fly in one himself.

"Unfortunately over the last 30 years of my career I've been appealing, saying 'hey, we want to ride in one of these jets!' but we have not yet had the chance," Kono said in an interview with PC Gamer. "Neither myself, or anyone on the team."

Heartbreaking! How much could it cost to rent a decommissioned fighter jet for a weekend, anyway? Heck, it seems like you can buy a perfectly good one for five million bucks. Bandai Namco probably makes that much on Gunpla model sales every day. Put some of that money to work.