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.