Flying is simple....

Flying is simple, you just throw yourself at the ground and miss.

But this time we didn't miss. There will a much longer follow up to this email in the near future, but for now, I would just like to thank all the people who have sent Mathieu and I messages and phone calls offering encouragement and support during what has proven to be the most difficult 5 days of our lives.

The landing in Mascouche didn't exactly go as planned, and we wound up in separate Montreal hospitals. Mathieu had compression fractures to his L1 vertebrae, and I had a cracked C4 and dislocated C5 C6 vertebrae, nearly severing my spinal cord.

We have both been successfully treated, and at this point I am the only one with lingering side effects (numbness and weakness in my left arm, which continues to improve). But now if it wasn't for the full torso clam shell brace worn by Mathieu and the neck support worn by me you wouldn't know we'd been through a near catastrophic plane crash. As the news reports said, we did extricate ourselves from the wreckage, but we were severely motivated by the fuel dumping out of the full wing tanks. We didn't get far before collapsing.

My friends, thank you. This was far and away the most brutal 5 days of my life. All the phone calls and emails, all the visits, especially from Michel Lemay and the Gan Sky Cows, were crucial in helping me make it through this.

We are both now convalescing at home.

I would especially like to thank my Mother and my sister for being there when I woke after surgery, to Diane for flying in to help me manage at home, and Mark Hugget, who cheerfully, and without any warning whatsoever, dropped everything to come tearing down to Montreal to fetch me when I was released.

Kim. It turns out you are one hell of a lot tougher than you look. I'm glad I wasn't one of the bureaucrats you declared war on.

I will be writing a scathing diatribe on the Quebec health care system later.

Have Airplane....

Several people have pointed out that I forgot to explain the 4 pool noodles I brought to Montreal. The roll-up door at the back of the Otter is not original equipment. The cargo door that the aircraft comes with is not suitable for skydiving, so a home-made roll-up door is made out of plexiglass. But no matter how well they fit, there's a blast of cold air that comes through at the top to torment the people sitting on the floor at the back of the plane. The people who have it the worst are sitting on the floor across from the door. The air comes in at the top of the door, circles across the ceiling and dumps right onto them. But if you jam a pool noodle between the handle running the length of the top of the door and the door itself, it pushes it closed, and it's quite comfortable. Until you lose the noodle when the plane goes into a dive after everyone has left. Invariably it's a couple of small girls who wind up across from the door instead of a couple of big, tough, husky guys. I was sitting across from a wee thing named Kat for all the big-way jumps, and after the noodle disappeared from our plane after only one use, she sat there shivering in the back corner without a word of complaint for the rest of the jumps. 18,000 Feet, and the temperature drops 2 degrees centigrade for every 1,000 feet of altitude. She was sitting in one very cold corner. 

Summer Vacation, Part II 


Have Airplane, Will Travel.

Last year after we left Summerfest, Gerry, Diane and I spent a day at a little airshow in a place called Oshkosh. We had so much fun that when Mathieu Belanger invited me to fly into Oshkosh for this years show there was no way I was going to say no. When he offered me the pilots seat for the flight I thought I'd died and gone to pilot heaven. In truth, Oshkosh isn't actually a little show. 5 Percent of the general aviation aircraft in North America will put in an appearance at some time during the show. Most of the functioning, flyable, privately owned Warbirds will be there. Aircraft will be flying in from around the world for this. The show is hosted by the Experimental Aircraft Association, the umbrella association for home built airplanes. The owner of every home built aircraft owner within range will have rearranged their lives to attend this event at least once. The list goes on. If there is one place in the world that could be considered Mecca for pilots, this would be it.

I was still trying to get my head around that fact that I was going to be at the controls when we landed in Oshkosh when it started to sink that I was going to be at the controls when we landed in Oshkosh. Crap. I remembered going on You Tube once and searching "Oshkosh Air Traffic Control" The videos showed a non-stop barrage of instructions from a series of Air Traffic Controllers directing the airplanes following a set of railroad tracks into Oshkosh, and bringing them in for landing 3 at a time on the same runway. That means that if you're the guy in the middle you may have somebody landing a couple thousand feet in front of you at the same time that one is landing behind you. You rock your wings back and forth to acknowledge transmissions and follow all instructions without question. They hang a sign from the control tower reading "Worlds Busiest Control Tower" and it's no lie. 

I've flown 4 times in the last 5 years, and last week when I landed Matt and Kim's 182 I'd bounced it down the runway like a ham fisted student. I was still stinging from the embarrassment of porpoising the plane up and down instead of making a smooth landing like I had done thousands of times before. Rusty? That ain't the word. Now I was going to land in front of a couple hundred thousand people? How do I get myself into these things? It's not that I mind making a fool out of myself in front of a crowd, but usually there's alcohol and skydivers involved so I blend right in with everybody else. 

In the end we decided that I would do the Aviatin', while Matt would do the Navigatin' and Communicatin'. The most difficult parts of flying are navigating, dealing with control towers, and landing. A well trained monkey can hold a course and altitude. I will be the trained monkey, Matt will do all the complicated crap, pointing me in the right direction, and taking over the controls when we turn onto final. That also gives him bragging rights to landing at Oshkosh. The plane belongs to Matt and Kim, not me, he's the one who deserves the glory slot.

The plan was to leave early on Monday morning, fly to the Sault to clear US customs, and be on the ground in Oshkosh before the airport closed for the afternoon airshow at 2:30. That plan fell apart on Friday afternoon.

I had driven Matt down to Farnham that morning to pick up the plane after it had been serviced, and while we were there we wound up jumping with one of the local girls and a guy named Michel Lemay. He's a member of Evolution, the Formation Skydiving team composed of himself and his 3 sons. I don't know exactly where they rate but it's safe to say they they're among the top 10 teams in the world. As we prepared to leave at the end of the day Michel said that his kids were going to be doing non stop back to back loads with their Vertical Relative Work team Monday morning. He invited us to return on Monday and and do 4-way with him while the kids were training. He figured that we could get in at least 6 jumps before 1 o'clock, maybe more. Free coaching from Michel Lemay? Like the invitation to fly to Oshkosh, it was too good to say no to. We're departing Rockliffe airport before dawn, picking up Caroline on the way, and by the time we're done jumping and drop her back off, we probably won't be able to make it to Oshkosh before the airport closes at 8.

We started with a carefully thought out and calculated plan, with every detail taken into consideration and dealt with, now we've tossed it out the window, and are going skydiving instead. We don't know if we'll be able to find a place to clear customs when we're finally ready to cross the border, and even if we can, we don't  know where we're going because our destination airport will be closed before we can get there.

But, we'll have our gear, credits cards, and a Turbo Charged Cessna 182 with retractable gear, and a full tank of gas. Anywhere within a thousand miles will be within our reach.

Have airplane, will travel.... But where?

"If Wine is Fruit, Then Vodka

"If wine is fruit, then Vodka is a vegetable." Jann Arden

On Saturday night, I did my best to ensure that everybody got their vegetables.

The banquet on Saturday evening was followed by an epic party. That's as it should have been, it was a party that was 17 months in the making. As soon as the last load of the day had landed dinner was served up on the front lawn. The main purpose of the meal was to serve as a cushion for the alcohol that was being consumed at an ever accelerating pace. After he had levied and collected the days beer fines Brian had passed the hat and come back with a truckload of beer. People had brought wine and their favorite liquor; I had a liter and a half sized bottle of Grey Goose along with a bottle of Crystal Skull Vodka. I quickly became one of the most popular people at the party as I doled out lemonade and Vodka as fast as I could. By the time the drumming group that was part of the entertainment showed up the festivities were in high gear. When the DJ took over there were so many bodies leaping and gyrating on the deck that I thought it was in danger of collapsing. A had actually taken dancing lessons a few years ago with a friend of mine and and staked out a piece of the deck where I wore out 3 different dance partners doing a blended hip-hop techno-swing thing before I made the mistake of inviting Josee to join me. Next time I'm going to ask her to dance first, before the others ones wear me down and soften me up a little. Benoit Lemay didn't need to cut the Vodka down with lemonade, and was swigging it straight out of the skull shaped bottle. He barely looks old enough to drive let alone gulp down moutfulls of hard liquor like a professional coarse drinker. For myself, when I read of the evils of drinking, I stop reading. A lot of the girls were wearing short skirts and sleeveless dresses in spite of all the bruises they were displaying. One had a perfect series of hand prints from wrist to shoulder, evidence of over enthusiastic gripping from the people flying beside her. Diane got slammed into the back of the door frame by somebody as she was diving out and has a bruise on her shoulder that looks like she got hit with a baseball bat.

We left before things got out of hand. Okay, we left before I got out of hand.  Nobody ever calls you up to tell you something good you did the night before when you were completely trashed. Nobody's ever said "Lawrence, you got ripped last night and painted the orphanage".

The next morning it looked like I was off the hook for the POPS jump as 9:30 approached and there were nowhere near enough people on the drop zone to make an attempt. Then there was a last minute flood of people giving us 36 qualified participants. Which is when Martin stepped over and said he would be happy to organize the jump. I was saved! In the end all I did was collect the names of the participants.

36 People plus video was just enough to fill the Sherpa, and all of us poured out the tailgate of that beast like lemmings into the sea. It built fast, and was probably the most solid and quietest formation that had been built all week. Again, it looked like we had it, but one girl went low, and no amount of struggling on her part could get her back up to the formation. Brian said later that she was in tears as she walked back from the landing area. I felt sorry for her, at one time or another everybody goes low becoming "That Guy". I've been there, looking up at all those people looking down at you. A miscalculation about how much weight to add, wearing the wrong suit, diving a couple of seconds too long, or getting taken out by someone on exit, is all it takes.

People were still jumping, but we were done, and made the rounds to say our goodbyes. We sat on the deck with all the Whuffos for a while before we left and watched as Martin came in from the landing area with a Tandem rig on his back and in bare feet. All week long he had been wearing lime green crocs shaped like huge monster feet. He had forgotten to do up the straps before he left the plane and lost them in free fall. Diane wondered aloud if his passenger had any idea how privileged they were to have had him as their Instructor. Even if he does wear funny shoes.

We stopped at a Tim Horton's on the way back. As we sat eating our lunch and I looked around at all the people, I was struck by how normal everything was. We had spent the last 7 days completely immersed in skydiving. We were at the DZ every day for 8, and rarely left before dark. This place didn't have piles of nylon and micro-line all over the floor, no turbine engines screaming in the background. The place was crowded, but there was no sign of the energy like there was at the place we had just left. Nobody was damaged, no bruises, no limping, no knee braces or ice packs. All the members of Mission 100 had spent a week busting their asses doing everything they could to make it happen, and the rest of the world had blissfully carried on. 17 Months had come down to a week of intense effort on the part of a hell of a lot of people all working towards a common goal.

Suddenly I felt sorry for all those people in the restaurant.

'To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people merely exist, that's all."
Oscar Wilde

There's no sense in being pessimistic...

"There's no point in being pessimistic, it wouldn't work anyway." Me

Martin offered to organize an attempt at a POPS (Parachutists Over Phorty Society) record attempt. There were 56 people on the DZ that qualified, and although they weren't all members it would just be a paperwork exercise to get that  done after we had made the record. For my 40th birthday my girlfriend at the time had registered me and bought me a T-shirt complete with my POPS number on it. This would be easy. Some of these people had spent the last 6 days practicing for a 100 way, doing a 56 way would be a piece of cake.

The plan was to build the same basic formation that we had been practicing all week, just with fewer people. We'd build it out as far as we could with however many people we had.

Easy-peasy.

We strolled through the dirt dive, knowing that this was well within our capabilities. The average number of jumps of the people that were on this jump was probably in the thousands.

We went up, we went out, and nailed it. We held that thing for at least 5 seconds before we broke and tracked away. When we landed all you could hear was hooting, hollering, and cheering because we knew we had nailed our second national record in as many days.

The road past the DZ and the pathway back to the packing area was lined with people congratulating us on our achievement.

But when the judges saw the tape, it turned out that, wait for it, wait for it.......


We'd "Missed it by that much!"

Everybody got on, but not all at the same time. We had built a 56 way, but not all the grips were in the proper place all at the same time.

Crap.

The only thing to do was to go up and try again. Which resulted in a complete ZOO dive that rivaled anything I'd ever seen during the worst excesses of the World Freefall Convention.

As we walked to the debrief Mario fell in beside me and pointed out that there was still enough daylight left to give it another shot. I was completely blindsided when he asked "Would you like to organize it?" Would I?!?!?! OHMYFUCKINGGOD!!!!!!!!. Hell Yeah!!!!!!

Then I remembered the now half empty mug of Crystal Skull Vodka and Lemonade in my hand. When we entered the debriefing tent  he saw that that I was not the only one, and that most of the people had decided it was past beer thirty somewhere in the world. Reality set in as I pondered trying to put together a Canadian National Record. The biggest thing I had ever run was a few 20 ways during long weekend boogies in Gan. This was way beyond my experience, and I was glad I had already begun drinking.

After watching the video a couple of times, Mario pointed out that we were all tired, that it was hot, and that he didn't think there was enough energy left to try it again. Today.


Which is when he dropped his bombshell. He turned to me and asked "Larry, would you be willing to organize another jump tomorrow?" 56 Pairs of eyes turned to me. Oh Fuck. I'll swear my heart skipped a beat. My mind went into overdrive as I tried to think up a way to sidestep this freight train that had been pointed at me. But there was only one possible answer to give. Mario knew that when he had asked the question. "Yes" was the only thing to say.


Mario Prevost has been pretty good to me over the years. And now, he's just given me my chance to show if I can live up to the legend that I am in my own mind. We'll find out if I can at 9:30 Sunday morning. 


I'm Fucked.

Skydivers make Lion Tamers look.....

Skydivers make Lion Tamers look sane and well adjusted

I've been too busy partying and skydiving my ass off, but I'll try and get ya'll caught up on the happenings before we got the record.

I'm pretty much up to speed on big-way techniques, having done 4 events since January, and haven't hesitated to speak up in the briefings when I felt I had something to offer. There are a lot of people here who have never been on anything  anywhere near this big or that have ever done a big way camp. That's all I've done for the last year and a half. To my great shock Martin Lemay actually asked me for my opinions a few times during briefs and debriefs! ME! If my head swells up any more I don't think I'll be able to fit it into my helmet.

Brian has done a spectacular job as Beer Cop. He takes a couple of minutes at the end of the second last briefing of the day to call out all the people who have had fines imposed and whether or not they've paid. Twice during a debrief Francois Leblanc's phone has rung. The first time he was fined a six-pack, and the second time he said he would bring a keg to the banquet. We found out later that someone else at the briefing had been phoning him so he would get fined. I forgot to check in after a jump, but Brian announced that Diane had paid the fine for me and that I could "work it off later". He used to be a tax collector. When he stands up and starts to reel off names and their sins the whole tent is consummed with gales of laughter, and they quickly pay up.

After having my exit slot changed half a dozen times I finally wound up where I knew I wuz gonna, Front Float. The curse imposed by Dan B.C. is still following me: "And you are forever condemned to be front float, and so shall your children, and your children's children, and your children's children's children!" Front float means your at the back of the plane beside the door, not quite the coldest seat but damn close. I'm also the first person to climb out and cling to the fuselage of the plane getting as clear of the door as possible so I can break the wind for everybody who is climbing out after me. That means I have to hang out there in the wind for longer than anybody else. Over the last  5 days I've been inside the plane, outside the plane, floating, and diving, but I seem to keep getting put back into front float. They move me out of that slot once in a while just to tease me, making me think I've finally been redeemed, and then they put me back.

On the jump after the record, Angus Smith, who was the only person jumping without a suit, going in shorts and a T-shirt, took his rig off, removed his shirt, and started to pull the rig back on. Mario Prevost stopped him saying, “Put the shirt back on or go naked, but you can’t go halfway.” The temperature drops 2 degrees centigrade for every thousand feet we ascend. We’re jumping from 18 thousand feet. You do the math, it adds up to pretty friggin’ cold. Some airplanes have retractable gear. People generally do not. But if you take a short, skinny little guy, strip him naked, and put him in the door of an airplane at 18,000 feet, you quickly learn what retractable gear really means. His “guys” were probably hiding up somewhere around his chin as they tried to find a warm spot. Not only would nobody else have done it, nobody else could have pulled it off. He made his slot with style. The day before he had deliberately landed on the roof of the building. Because he is who he is, he didn't get in trouble for it, but he was told not to do it again. Later on I saw him coming out of the landing area carrying one of the signs that say “Danger! Parachute Landing Area!” He climbed a ladder to the roof and zip tied it to an antenna. He was just staking his territory.

Most of the tracking groups have been doing well, and the group I’m leading have been rock stars. The point of tracking is to achieve horizontal separation from everybody else to get to where you can safely deploy your parachute. Ideally your vertical descent will actually slow down as you move horizontally. If they make team tracking an event at the Nationals I’m going to enter my group and we’d have a lock on the gold medal. The same can’t be said of all of the groups though. I overheard one of the guys on the base describing how one of the other people on the base was tracking. “He tracks like a set of car keys”. Not my problem. By the time he leaves I'm already in another county. 

Martin has promised us a bunch of challenging skydives to keep us engaged for Saturday and Sunday, maybe a sequential record, battling 50-ways, whatever. We've already accomplished all we needed to do here.

Cyr Langevin. The Hero Of Mission 100

Directly in front of you if you walk into my house there is large photograph of the Canadian record set in 2006.

I’m going to have to replace that photograph. It’s no longer current. As of 20 minutes after 1 o’clock this afternoon, the record stands at 102, not 59.

And we’ve entered the Twilight Zone. The space time continuum has broken down, the whole planet must be about to shift into a new reality, because Cyr Langevin has become the Hero of Mission 100. There are a whole bunch of people reading this who’s jaws have just dropped, their minds are reeling, and they may even be suffering from shock. No there are not 2 Cyr Langevin’s. He’s a one of a kind.

He’s a short, kinda round, sorta’ scary lookin’ guy with tobacco stained teeth, “cutway” tattooed onto his right hand, “Reserve” tattooed onto his left, and a tattoo of the Grim Reaper across his chest. He’s a PFF Instructor and teaches the first jump course at Mile High Parachuting. He claims to be bilingual, but if he’s speaking English he has to repeat everything 3 or 4 time before anybody can understand him. I’ve been told that the same thing happens when he’s speaking French. And he’s got a heart of gold. He’d give a stranger the shirt off his back if he thought the guy needed it. He re-wired my house a couple of years ago because he was unemployed at the time and just wanted something to do that winter.

The first jump today came within 4 people of completing. 3 People didn’t quite make their grips, and Cyr went low. I looked across the formation to see him 20 feet underneath us, getting as flat and as big as he possibly could as he desperately tried to slow down and get back up to the formation. It was hopeless.He had to know that he was “That Guy”. I briefly wondered about the stream of unintelligible curses that had to be bouncing around inside of his helmet as he continued to sink.

There was a stunned silence in the debriefing tent when Martin announced that someone had come to him and asked to be replaced. I instantly knew that it had to be Cyr. Out of all the years I have been attending events like this I have never seen anybody voluntarily step down because they didn’t want to be the person that holds everybody else back from achieving the goal. He went from Zero, to Hero, in one step. He didn’t feel he was capable of flying his slot, and Martin didn’t have anywhere that he felt he could move him to.  He looks pretty rough around the edges, but in his own way, he’s a class act, and I tip my hat to him. I can’t imagine a better example of “Taking one for the team”.

On the next jump we went up and it was almost anticlimactic when we simply flew in, picked up grips, and set a new record. There was plenty of hooting and hollering in the landing areas, and shortly after we were down I saw some pictures taken with a telephoto lens that showed everybody on grips. After the Canadian record attempt that never was in Perris in the spring of 2011, Mission 100 at Parachute Montreal in the summer of 2011, we just went up, went out the doors, and did it. We “Got The Fuck In’, and got the job done.

At the debrief Martin announced that the judges had confirmed the results, and when the cheering and shouting had died down he announced that we were now going to go up and do 103 way, so that Cyr could join us, and be part of the record. When the dirt dive was over we headed for the planes with 100 voices chanting CYR! CYR! CYR! CYR! CYR!.

We didn’t complete the formation, but Cyr had the satisfaction of making his slot, and looking down at the people who were low, saying in his unmistakeable accent “Awwww! It sure fuckin’ sucks to be you!!!!!”

I can hear Buck, Trevor, Dan, Vic, Denise, and all the rest of the gang at our home drop zone laughing from here.

Over 2500 jumps, 20 seasons in the sport, more bizarre things than I could ever hope to remember, and the most surreal moment of the last 20 years was all those people chanting Cyr’s name.

Cyr Langevin. The hero of Mission 100.

I wrote the story of the completion of this event in my mind a thousand times. I have never been so wrong.

“I’ve learned to use the word impossible, with the greatest caution” Wernher von Braun

Before we left the drop zone on Wednesday night Alain Bard decided to set up his hot air balloon. he had told me years before that he had built one himself and when I accused him of making that up he shrugged and pointed out "People build their own airplanes, why not a balloon?" He hadn't been stringing me along, and he started to lay it out in the landing area as evening approached. He needed a couple of vehicles with trailer hitches and I quickly volunteered my shiny new SUV and went looking for another. The first person I asked was Richard Bisson. He's been reading this blog for years and because of that you would think he'd know better than to simply give up his keys without asking what I was up to. But without hesitation he handed them over. I neglected to take into consideration that a Honda Civic has a lot less ground clearance than an SUV, so it kinda bottomed out a little as I went across the bike path into the field, but I'm sure his wife will never notice any damage, it's all underneath. He didn't seem at all perturbed to look over later and see a hot air balloon bobbing around tethered to his family car, so I guess he's become immune to my antics by now.

I managed to dodge Beer Cop duty this time around, naming Brian Forbes as my successor. I had planned to stick Beth Bryan with the task but she had to cancel when the work trip she was counting on to pay her travel expenses fell through. Brian has been doing a fine job, pouncing on stupid mistakes like missing a debrief or forgetting your helmet. Beer is the nectar of knowledge. Aside from the motivating effect of levying a fine for a stupid mistake, at the end of the day when we all gather to drink the beer, skydiving stories are told, and much learning takes place. The problem with these stories is the same as with most learning experiences. "Ya know that thing you just did? Don't do that!" Most of the stories end with "Later on, when we were at the hospital....."

It's mid afternoon on Thursday and we're on a wind hold. The first 2 jumps with all 102 of us went well, and while there is much to improve on things look promising. Diane asked if I would strip down to my underwear when we're put on a 20 minute call. The last couple of times we were in Perris there was always some guy in the middle of the packing mat stripped down to his underwear to put on his jump suit when we had 20 minutes to go. It was just as reliable as the calls from manifest.

I hope we're not left hanging too long, all the weather holds at last years record attempts sucked the energy right out of people.

Talent is only....

"Talent is only a starting point." Irving Berlin

We have talent in abundance here, the number of people running around with "P3100 Way Club' patches and various iterations of "World team" and "World Record" T-shirts is impressive. But, like the man said, talent is only a starting point. With that in mind, we're off to a great start. Martin didn't waste any time this morning, and after his regular thorough briefing we were split into groups and sent up for our first jumps.

The slots we're in today are pretty much the slots we'll be in  for the rest of the week. I'm floating on the right trail trail Otter, which means I'll be hanging from the  outside of the "D" or number 4 plane, with one Otter between us and the lead plane. The first dive went amazingly well, and was far better than anything I was on as part of the warm ups over the preceding 2 days. It built quickly, and although parts of it were waving around a bit nobody had any trouble docking and everybody made it in. I'm tracking leader for my group, and managed to gather everybody up with a minimum of fuss when it was time to go. I didn't outrun them, and we stayed reasonably together until our assigned altitude when everybody fanned out to get clear air to deploy a parachute. For a lot of people tracking as a group is a new skill they have to learn. From the first time you start to to jump with someone else you're taught to get the hell away from everybody when the skydive is over. Learning how to move in one direction at speed with half a dozen other people is not a skill most people practice.

The second jump was a little sportier. The guy I was supposed to dock on was late and came screaming into his slot. He reached down to grab his grip on Celine before he had come to a stop and sent a wave through the formation, while simultaneously grabbing enough air that he popped way up in his slot. He dropped the grip as he executed a climbing turn to the left, finally getting everything under control, on level, about 20 feet away. When he came back for another try he repeated the whole process. The only difference was that he hung on long enough for me to take a grip this time, but when I saw what was coming I let him go and watched as he disappeared out out of sight, leaving the rest of us all flying our slots as if he had never put in an appearance. That will definitely cost him a case of beer.

We were sitting in the loading area when the Sherpa landed and taxied past us. The pilot was trying to get as far off the runway as he could to make room for the 2 Otters that were moving around and got a little too close to the vent pipe for the gas pumps. He inched closer and closer, trying to gauge if he was going to to miss them or not, when suddenly a flurry of paint chips came off the wingtip. He wishes he'd Missed It By That Much!

The day continued to go well jumping-wise for both groups, except for one guy on Diane's plane later in the day. We were sitting in the loading area waiting for our plane to land when Pierre Dalcourt walked out of manifest with a bucket and mop.  When the plane landed there was one green faced skydiver left aboard. Pierre handed up the bucket and mop before walking away. The sheepish looking skydiver proceeded to begin mopping out the plane and we realized he had puked while the last load was on it's way to altitude. It turns out he had been on Diane's load and later she gave me a graphic description of him projectile vomiting a' la' Exorcist while they were approaching jump altitude. He was at the front of the plane so there was a river of red Gatorade running down the length of the plane to the rear. She figures he simply over-hydrated. We gave him a round of applause as he carried his mop and bucket past us.

We finished the day with 5 very successful jumps. And then the real fun started.

I had just poured myself a large mug of Grey Goose and lemonade when Mathieu ran up and asked if I wanted to go along on a taxi flight to take a couple of pilots over to pick up the last Otter at another airport. The mug was at my mouth, the smell of lemonade was in my nostrils, and my brain had already begun to release the endorphin's that the vodka would trigger. Crap! Fly? Vodka? What a choice! But there was no real choice, and I put the mug down and Matt and I ran out to the plane. "I'll do a weight and balance if you do the preflight walk-around, just dip the tanks first and tell me how much fuel there is." Transport Canada regulations require a weight and balance calculation to be done before every flight to be sure that the aircraft is safe to fly. The other pilots showed up and climbed into the back of Kim and Mathieu's toy, a sweet little high performance turbo charged Cessna 182 with retractable gear. Matt finished the math about the same time I finished the walk-around and he asked if I wanted the left (pilot in command's) seat. "Hell Yeah!" was the only possible reply. We climbed in and after a hurried checklist I reached over to turn the key when one of the guys in the back, Daniel Pacquette, said "Wait! My dog wants to come!" He popped open the door and scooped up the puppy as Matt protested "I didn't include a dog on the weight and balance!" I thought he was serious until I saw the grin on his face.

Matt told me would have a "light hand on the controls" but that I would be handling the take-off and proceeded to fire a barrage of instructions at me on proper classic soft field take-off technique as I weaved the plane down the gravel runway like a drunken sailor on his way home from the bars. His advice went straight in one ear and out the other. All I could think of as I tried to keep the plane out of the ditch on either side of the runway was that I had flown only 3 times in the last 5 years, and that the other 3 people on board made their living as commercial pilots.

No pressure.

The take off went better then I could have ever hoped, but the same could not be said of our landing after a ten minute flight. I still couldn't find the airport we were going to until Daniel finally said "Larry, look straight down. See the airplanes?" Oh THAT airport! We did a quick circuit with Matt giving me another set of instructions that I paid absolutely no attention to whatsoever as I tried to line the plane up with a runway that somehow seemed to be getting smaller and smaller the closer we got. I couldn't resist pointing out that I had never seen Daniel so quiet before and he replied that he was looking out for traffic. I suddenly realized that I had never looked even once to see if there was anybody else around, and could have easily blundered right into a target as large as a dozen hot air balloons and never seen them.

I didn't exactly slam it onto the runway, but we hit hard enough that we wound up bouncing back into the air 3 times before I finally got the damn thing to stick to the planet. When I asked "Will we have to pay a landing fee for all of those or just one fee for all three?" the guys in the back burst into laughter. No doubt they were just thrilled to have not been killed by my ham fisted  impersonation of a pilot. The next problem was getting the thing stopped before we plowed into the Twin Otter parked directly in front of us at the end of the runway. As we skidded along the gravel all I could picture was the headline in the next Canpara magazine. "Mission 100 cancelled after moron collides with Otter"

After we dropped the passengers off, we turned around and headed back to Farnham. As we approached the airport Matt asked 'Do you think we should do a fly-by?" Are you friggin' kidding me?!?! When I used to fly on a regular basis I was quite famous (infamous?) for doing stupid things with airplanes, chief among them being buzz jobs that were well beyond ill advised and well into "Fuck I'm glad I didn't kill myself!"

I pointed out that if there were any repercussions that as the aircraft owner and professional pilot he was the one who would be in trouble with Transport Canada, but he seemed more worried about someone at Nouvel Air objecting. "They do stuff like that here all the time" I assured him, and we proceeded to make a 220 knot pass at low altitude past the people enjoying the bar-b-q on the front lawn and down the length of the runway.

When I finally got hold of that mug of Grey Goose and lemonade, I don't think anything I have ever had to drink ever tasted so sweet, or went down so well.

Yippee! It's Tuesday!

Every Tuesday for 23 1/2 years I spent doing exactly the same thing. First: unload a tractor trailer full of crap. By hand. Second: sort, price, and put away all that crap. One of the kids who worked for me coined the phrase "Yippee! It's Tuesday!" in an effort to turn mindless physical labor and drudgery into something that was fun. Strangely, it kinda worked. But for the last 10 Tuesdays there have been no trucks, no crap to sort and put away, and there never will be again. From now on I get to do whatever I choose on any given day, Tuesdays included.

This Tuesday started with a Mr. Potato Head Dive. As Diane put it "If we start the day by doing something stupid, it can only get better." Today was supposed to be a warm up day for Mission 100 which starts tomorrow. But we slept in and arrived late, only to discover that they had started the big ways without us. When Celine mentioned that she had a Mr Potato Head in her bag, we pounced on the chance. Pierre Dalcourt volunteered to take charge of the potato piece and the other 5 of us quickly divvied up the rest of the pieces and devised a plan. I got an arm and an ear, Diane got the eyes and the other ear. I was the first person to dive out the door after Pierre, and quickly jammed the arm in before sliding out of the way for someone else to install a piece. Celine was next, and I looked past her to see Diane fighting with the arm of her suit as she sank out and wound up about 50 feet below us. How the hell could anybody wind up low on a Mr. Potato Head jump? It turned out she had planned to dive down on me as I was trying to install my first piece, grab hold of me, and fling me across the sky before I could accomplish my task. She had stuffed her pieces up the sleeve of her jumpsuit to leave her hands free but I got to Pierre so quick she never had the chance to launch her nefarious scheme. That left her having to dig the pieces out of her sleeves which is why she lost so much altitude. In the end we were left with the ugliest Mr Potato Head I have ever seen. It was like some bizarre kind of potato orgy as people jammed whatever body part they happened to have into whatever opening was available. 

Thank god this is a serious skydiving event! I'd hate to see what kind of stupidity we might get up to of we were there just to have fun. 

We joined the larger group for some 40 ways later, with varying degrees of success, but none of the nonsense we'd had on the first jump. Even Celine screaming in and docking on Diane to prevent herself from going straight past it ended well when the formation just soaked up the wave she created. That's the sort of move thats usually like cracking the whip on skates. Everybody just passes the kinetic energy on to the person they're holding onto until it gets to the person on the far side, who gets tossed off like a cowboy losing the fight on a bucking bronco. 

Martin is spending the afternoon slotting everybody for the 100 ways that are due to start on Thursday. Wednesday starts with practice jumps for the base and the different sectors. People are still arriving and getting checked in. Brian borrowed my SUV to fetch Jean Aitken  and Monique Andrie from the airport, and by bedtime tonight skydivers will have taken over every hotel and bed and breakfast within 30 kilometers. Some hotel owners may regret that by the time we all bugger off back to whence we came from. as long as we have early mornings the clown show should be fairly well behaved, but once we get that record.......

Mission 100, 2.0

"Missed it by that much!"  Maxwell Smart


So close, and yet so far. Skydiving is the ultimate team sport. It doesn't matter how many stars you have on your team, if one person doesn't make their slot, it doesn't count. A year ago Martin Lemay brought together 100 of the best Canadian Skydivers he could find. His criteria was hardly stringent, but the simple fact is that there are not very many Canadian Skydivers to draw from to begin with. He went looking for 100 people who were willing to take a week out of their lives, who would ditch either family, or work, or both, who were willing to risk a week of hard work and frustration, a week of dealing with whatever problems the weather could throw at them, a week of heat, stress, storms, and logistical problems too numerous to mention, just to set a record that few who were not a part of it would take notice of. "Why would you jump out of a perfectly good airplane?" I lost track a decade ago of the number of times I've been asked that question. My only reply? "If you lack so much imagination that you have to ask the question, I don't think I could give you an answer that you would understand." 


Why give up a week of your life and and far more money than any normal person would merely to be able to say that you had been a part of the Largest Formation of Skydivers ever assembled over Canada? "Because we CAN!!!!!!" 

My mother understands it perfectly. There is no way my father ever would have. Too much imagination? Not enough? I don't know. I do know that for the second year in a row there are over 100 people who didn't need to have that question asked of them twice. Last year, on the last possible jump chance to set a new record, we lost one jumper to a premature deployment as soon as he went out the door, and we "Missed it by that much!." 


We were all disappointed, but Martin Lemay, the young man who had poured his heart and soul into the event, was crushed. But through his anguish after seeing victory snatched away to be replaced by defeat, he promised us all another chance.

Mission 100, 2.0
Skydive Nouvel Air, Farnham Quebec
July 11-15
I've brought all the booze I can carry, a serious party attitude, 2 cameras, 2 laptops, 2 coolers, a hot blonde, 4 pool noodles, and like the other 99 people attending, a fierce determination that this time we're going to see the job through, come what may. The current Canadian Record for Largest Skydiving Formation is 59 people and was set in June 2006 in the sky over Burnaby Ontario.

That is about to change.

Stay tuned. If past experience is any guide, the next 6 days should prove to be very entertaining.