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On a wing and a prayer Jesse Winter and Simon Whitehouse Northern News Services Published Tuesday, July 16, 2012
We readily accepted. The question instantly became though, who was actually going to do it. Fortunately, sports writer Jesse Winter was game for the jump, as was city hall reporter Simon Whitehouse for the sonic jet ride.
Here are their stories:
JESSE: When our assignment editor Mike Bryant swiveled around in his chair and said, "Jess, you wanna jump out of an airplane?" my response was an immediate "Yes," followed a few seconds later by, "wait, what?"
Two weeks later and the day had finally arrived. I spent the morning at the airport shooting photos of our intrepid Simon Whitehouse as he prepared for a flight with the Snowbirds. After all the requisite Top Gun jokes and photos had been made, I hauled my gear over to the Canadian Forces SkyHawks hanger to meet the good folks who would be pushing me out of a plane a few hours later.
SIMON: For me riding the Snowbird, while I have spent many Canada Days watching them scream over Parliament Hill, my mind kept shooting back to 1989 when two of the planes touched wings during the CNE Airshow. One pilot plunged to his fiery death in Lake Ontario. Still, I felt I had to accept the assignment, in part because I took the offer as being a challenge and didn't want to chicken out in front of the the newsroom. I came to find out later that I was on the first of seven scheduled media flights put on by the Snowbirds, and the pilots weren't allowed to do any of their roughly 60 show maneuvers with a passenger aboard. So it was a pretty safe flight path to Fort Providence and back for me.
JESSE: At the hanger, Sgt. Sebastien Tremblay gave me a quick tour of the Hercules C-130J, the beast that we'd be jumping from, and told me what to expect.
"When that door opens, it will hit you. You know this," he said, stomping on the tarmac. "You know what the ground feels like. But you won't know this. It will totally blow your mind," he said, grinning.
Okay, I thought, that sounds awesome. But what if I can't actually do it? What if I freak out?
"Oh, you will. Everyone does," Tremblay said casually as he introduced me to my tandem jumper, Cpl. Jonnie Shaw.
Shaw takes me through the rundown of what to do legs back, hips out, arms splayed.
"When we get to the edge of the ramp, just hang in your harness and put your head back into my shoulder. We'll back flip out of the plane and then I'll tap you on the shoulder and ..."
Uh, did you just say back flip?
"Yeah, just don't go into the fetal position," Shaw laughed. "That will really screw with us. I can get out of it, but we'll tumble a lot and it's not that much fun."
I immediately start chanting in my head he's done this 1,000 times, he's done this 1,000 times, he's done this 1,000 times.
SIMON: The experience of actually flying the Number 5 plane of the nine-member team with pilot Capt. Brett Parker, much like reporting, proved to be in some ways refreshingly new and in other ways fairly routine. Aside from being "the greatest roller coaster you've ever been on," as veteran technician Cpl. Winston Rose put it, the process in which I was strapped to the seat and prepared for emergency situations was an overload of information. I tried to force myself to remember the advice I got as to when it is appropriate to abandon the aircraft and pull the ejection rings to set off a rocket under the seat. I also tried to recall the order and steps needed to fix my seating properly, which included hooking the parachute and my body to the seat and plane, and coordinating the lap belt, comm cord, shoulder harness, lanyard, oxygen hookups and a breathing mask that was constantly digging into my nose.
As well, taking in the array of dials and buttons in the cockpit was no less easy to comprehend and I recalled a Bugs Bunny cartoon with Yosemite Sam in a plane that accurately enough over-exaggerated the number of control features.
JESSE: At 10,000 feet the ramp went down and my heart jumped so hard that Shaw felt me twitch.
"You okay, dude?"
Yeah. Oh, totally fine. No problem at all.
"Good. Cause here we go."
We shuffle awkwardly onto the ramp. The sky is everywhere as Shaw shouts into my ear, "Okay, hang."
I lift my feet off the ramp, shifting all my body weight onto him. Now he has total control. I'm freed from the responsibility of having to actually launch myself into space, but there's also no way I can stop him.
Tremblay was right. It doesn't seem real. The last three seconds are strangely calm as Shaw bellows the countdown and jumps.
The whole world literally the entire thing goes upside down below me.
We tumble, and I catch a glimpse of the Herc rotating away from us. Shaw levels us out, and I try to give him the thumbs up, but all I can think is that we're about to fall right through a cloud.
After an endless 25 seconds, Shaw pulls the chute and, with a jolt, suddenly we're floating. It's the most beautiful thing in the world. I can see every inch of the horizon as we glide down through billowing white clouds towards the air field.
"Pretty incredible, isn't it," Shaw says, with all trace of his cheeky sarcasm totally gone.
Best thing I've ever seen, I reply.
"Just another day at the office," Shaw says, grinning.
SIMON: I spent about 40 minutes in the air which took me to the Mackenzie River and back at an airspeed of about 0.5 Mach at between 500 and 1,000 feet above the ground.
At the Deh Cho Bridge, the team made a sharp reversal which gave me the experience of feeling a minimal amount of G-force on the tour. As Parker correctly predicted, it made it feel as though my blood was pushing into my shoes.
For much of the flight most of the other planes seemed to be at arm's length and at times the nose of our plane and the rear end of the next in front were separated by only four feet of space.
Coming back and as the ride became routine, Parker after a little while of silence, asked: "Well, do you wanna drive?"
Taking the stick was indeed quite incredible but remarkably easy for a reporter that has crashed the company vehicle two times since I have been in Yellowknife. Tipping the plane left or right was a matter of shifting the stick either way, while dipping or raising the nose depended on the extent to which I pushed or pulled the controller.
Upon reflection, I had a very lucky Friday the 13th, as both a reporter and as a Canadian citizen fascinated with the joys of flight and a unique aspect of our military heritage. The spectacle of Yellowknife and the land features really is "spectacular" and quite easily the highlight of my summer.
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