Have You Got the Right Stuff?

It's eight o'clock on a sun-splashed morning in Kissimmee, Florida. In just a few hours, ace venture capitalist Terry Garnett will strap himself into a single-prop Marchetti SF-260 fighter plane, soar into a great blue dome of sky, and do battle with a fearsome opponent at 5,000 feet. His adversary knows him - knows his every quirk and habit - and will try to best him in a winner-take-all dogfight over the flatlands of Florida.

Garnett's opponent is his wife, Katrina. With such a challenge ahead, what does he do to prepare mind, body, and soul? He digs into a no-hold-barred breakfast.

It's an incongruous sight: Terry and Katrina Garnett, Silicon Valley's prototypical power couple, squeezed like a couple of teenagers into a booth at an International House of Pancakes.

Terry, 41, who was the brains behind Oracle Corp.'s new-media division, serves on the boards of directors of five high-tech companies and is a partner in the Rockefeller family's Venrock Associates, a venture-capital fund that has backed scores of Silicon Valley's hypergrowth companies. Right now, though, he's making short work of a tall stack of buckwheat pancakes.

Next to him, guzzling straight-up shots of IHOP coffee is his Australian-born wife of 10 years. Katrina, 36, is a veteran of the firing lines at both Oracle and Sybase Inc. But she's best known as the poster girl for CrossWorlds Software Inc., a hot young company of which she is the CEO. Katrina attracted buzz with a capital B when, coifed to kill and photographed by celebrity portraitist Richard Avedon, she starred in a CrossWorlds ad that ran in several major magazines under the title "Trail Blazer."

Katrina has never piloted a plane. Neither has Terry. But inexperience won't keep them from flying against each other in an aerial shootout. The Garnetts are the guests of Fighter Pilots USA, a Chicago-based company that puts real people in real airplanes to fly mock dogfights. Since 1992, would-be warriors have come to Fighter Pilots USA's airfields in Illinois, Minnesota, and Florida to prove their mental and physical dexterity in the fast-forward arena of fly-by combat. An expert pilot will handle take-offs and landings. But once in the air, the Garnetts will be in control - in a furious, fur-flying dogfight.

In the world of high-tech business, Katrina and Terry Garnett have proven that they are decisive competitors. But cruising through the clouds at more than twice the speed of a maxed-out Porsche while trying to evade a dive-bombing Marchetti is different. "Aerial combat," concedes Katrina, "is probably a little more intense than concentrating for eight hours in front of a PC."

There are no draws in a dogfight - there are only winners and losers. So which of the sparring spouses will prevail?

Terry thinks that Katrina has the edge. "She has a fierce drive to succeed at everything she attempts," he says.

Katrina is not so sure. "Terry is better than I am at chess, where strategy is everything. My best game is backgammon, where a lot depends on luck. But the only way to find out is to fight it out. Let's get airborne!"

The Mission: Kill or Be Killed

The Garnetts arrive at fighter pilots USA's HQ: a small cinder-block building with the no-nonsense atmosphere of a military operation. The first order of business is to meet the instructors - real fighter jocks who answer only to their fly-boy monikers. Katrina will pair up with Dennis "D.C." Collins, a former Navy pilot and a graduate of the legendary Fighter Weapons School, which was featured in the movie Top Gun. Terry will fly with retired Air Force fighter jock George "Phoenix" Sherwood.

D.C. and Phoenix are outfitted in olive-drab flight suits. They lead the Garnetts into an aggressively air-conditioned briefing room. The walls are covered with whiteboards, on which D.C. has scrawled the highlights of the lecture that he's about to give. His topic: the rules of the dogfight.

"Your mission," D.C. announces, "is to defeat the bandit." Katrina and Terry look at each other: That means you, dear. D.C. explains that he and Phoenix will fly the planes to a predetermined spot. Then they will let the jousting begin. The veteran pilots will take control at the first hint of trouble, and they will ensure that the planes never get within 500 feet of each other. Otherwise, Terry and Katrina are free to maneuver as they wish.

"It's a very confusing world up there," warns D.C. "It's easy to lose sight of your opponent, because you've always got to look up and down, as well as side to side. And as any fighter pilot will tell you, if you lose sight, you lose the fight."

Terry has a nagging concern that he might lose more than the fight. For weeks, he has worried about getting airsick. He's done what he can to prevent such a fate: He popped a megadose of Dramamine. He armed himself with wristbands designed to prevent motion sickness. And of course, he wolfed down a plate of pancakes - "to get something into my system." But still.

"All this strategy stuff is fine," he says. "But Katrina is counting on one fact - that I'll get sick."