Flying with the Snowbirds
Walter Strong
Northern News Services
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Watching the Canadian Forces Snowbirds (431 squadron) from the ground I always wondered, do they actually fly that close together or is it just a matter of perspective.
Looking right out the cockpit as Snowbird squadron member and RCAF Capt. Matthew Hart enters into a bank turn in formation above the East Arm of Great Slave Lake. - Walter Strong/NNSL photo |
After a flight with the Snowboards last week out to Lutsel K'e and back, my suspicions were confirmed. Our perspective from the ground is skewed. I can tell you without doubt they are actually closer together than they look.
At times there were about six feet separating the nose of one jet from the tail end of another, and probably not much more on either side (in performance the distances may get as tight as four feet).
They are so close it's basically high-speed tailgating at 3,000 feet in the air and up to 590 km/h. Sure, there are not going to be any sudden stops, but there's turbulence, or as I would describe it, completely random bumps in the sky that jostle and punch every jet slightly out of position and for which the pilots constantly micro-adjust their flight controls to compensate.
The Snowbirds fly Canadair CT-114 Tutor jets with side-by-side seating and full flight controls at either seat. I know the both sets of controls work because my pilot, Royal Canadian Air Force Capt. Matthew Hart, let me fly. He also told me not to bump the controls while he was flying.
In an air show performance, the Snowbirds don't hit their top speed of 750 km/h, but they do perform at speeds between 186 km/h and 590 km/h in tight formations and through high-speed maneuvers.
Before getting into a Snowbird, there is a brief medical examination designed mostly to catch any medical conditions that might preclude one from flight in a ejection-seat equipped jet. After this there are about two hours of pre-flight preparation where potential fly-alongs are fitted with a jumpsuit (super comfy by the way, why do we not wear these all the time?), a helmet, a life preserver, a parachute and instruction on how to escape the jet in an emergency situation whether on the ground or in the air. And how does one escape a jet in an air emergency? It's actually quite effortless as the explosives under your seat mostly take care of it for you. If I heard the words, "Eject, eject, eject" I was to pull my hands to my chest.
"Keep your arms tight to your body so your elbows don't bump the sidewall on the way out," Hart added as he described ejection by explosive device as if it were a natural thing to be involved in. "After that, look up and check that your chute has deployed properly."
OK, and after that?
"Enjoy the ride."
Once we non-jet-pilot types (the flight "packs" as we were called) were up to speed on how to safely exit the jet in the case of an emergency we were all issued our "boarding passes" - two white vomit bags which we clipped to the legs of our jumpsuits for quick access in the sky.
Getting strapped into a Snowbird is by way of a four point chest harness and "G-strap" that comes up between your legs and firmly attaches you to the floor of the jet. This strap keeps the seat occupant in place through all the flying upside down and sudden maneuvers in almost any direction than can exert up six times the force of gravity (six Gs) on the jet's occupants.
Fortunately for my gut, the Snowbirds would not be flying at top performance speeds with green passengers ("green" both figuratively and literally). But even at half-speed, Hart pulled more than three Gs during some of our maneuvers. At three Gs you begin to feel very heavy and pressed into your seat like a kitten being sat on by a St. Bernard.
We flew from Yellowknife to Lutsel K'e for a brief show in support of the annual Canadian Armed Forces Operation Nanook arctic training exercise taking place there this year.
Prior to the flight I had assumed we wouldn't be doing any acrobatic maneuvers, but we did what felt like every trick in the book, including the famous Maple Split. Yellowknifers saw the Maple Split in the closing minutes of the Snowbirds performance at the end of last weekend's air show. The formation flies from the distance toward the crowd and very rapidly pulls straight skyward as the pilots split off in different directions at high speed trailing plumes of smoke tracing the reach of that ubiquitous symbol of Canada, the maple leaf.
My helmet channeled the team's communication frequency. The absolute calm over the radio as pilots flew within feet of each other, in and out of formation at high speed was impossible not to note and admire.
My pilot, Hart, is into his second year of what can be a four-year tour of duty with the Snowbirds. Prior to his tour with the Snowbirds, Hart was a jet fighter pilot trainer. He not only trained pilots to handle fighter jets, he also trained the trainers who train pilots to fly fighter jets. The guy is pretty much as cool as an autumn breeze off Great Slave Lake, piloting his jet in breathtaking aerial maneuvers as comfortably as you or I drive down an empty highway or pull into the driveway at the end of the day. He would briefly break off a conversation to pull a move only to pick up the conversation as naturally as if he had only paused to check the time.
It was a challenging environment to take photos in and after fighting G-forces for as long as I could, I eventually had to put the camera down to keep my breakfast down. It seemed to me Hart had a sense for how I was doing in terms of handling the G-force strain. I'd guess every pilot who had a pack that day was keeping a close tab on how their passengers were doing to ensure they got the thrill of a lifetime, even if it meant stepping outside of one's comfort zone. One of my co-flight packs told me afterward how he ended up in his first barrel role.
"My pilot asked me if I wanted to do a barrel roll," the pack said.
"I told him, 'No thanks I'm alright.'"
The pilot responded, "OK, but do you mind if I do one?"
And then they rolled.
- Walter Strong is photo editor for Northern News Services
