Taking the plunge with the Skyhawks
Jumping from plane at 12,500 feet among ‘weirdest and most amazing feelings’
Capt. John Hart has completed around 800 skydives since he joined the Skyhawks two years ago after leaving another job with the regular forces.
The Skyhawks are the only Canadian Armed Forces parachute demonstration team. Its 14 members tour North America, giving acrobatic performances in the air to the delight of crowds.
“Our primary role is to interact with the Canadian public,” said Hart.
“We will talk about our experiences and try to give them an idea of what it is we do, not just in the parachuting realm, but also from our normal occupations and then, you know, see if we can turn anyone to the recruiters as well.”
This type of airborne acrobatics requires extensive safety training, beginning on the ground. The Skyhawks then move into getting comfortable flying close to each other before finally practising actual formations and tricks.
For 10 weeks of training in the winter, the Skyhawks are down in California, where they perform around eight jumps a day for an estimated total of 300 jumps in that short time.
For Hart, the thrill never dies. “Despite 800 jumps, it’s still a thrill every time,” he said. “I have a heart rate monitor that I wear constantly and it’s always peaking over 100 no matter what I’m doing or how comfortable I feel for the jump.
“I don’t have to talk myself out of what I’m about to do, so that’s the easy part now, and it’s more or less just making sure that everything that I can possibly control is controlled and we’re ready for a skydive.”
It took about 100 jumps before he stopped mentally trying to talk himself out of jumping, he said.
Most of us, though, don’t have 800 jumps behind us.
So I had a little more adrenalin coursing through my veins as I put on my flight suit and harness, climbed into a plane and soared to the altitude of 12,500 feet.
With a full-body flight suit over my regular clothes and sitting in a small plane with a dozen other people, I was soon dripping with sweat. And nauseous.
Between the heat and the turbulence, I’m embarrassed to confess, I threw up on the plane — twice.
Once we reached 11,000 feet, Hart attached his harness to mine. Soon the back door of the plane was open, and I found myself penguin waddling into the sky.
We did a backflip immediately after stepping out of the plane and fell straight through a cloud.
For the first 6,000 feet or so, we were in free fall. I quickly learned that having my mouth open was a bad idea as the wind kept it wide open and gave me what one of the Skyhawks called “cotton-candy mouth.”
The sense of weightlessness when it’s just me and gravity was one of the weirdest and most amazing feelings I’ve ever had.
In reality, it was probably less than a minute before the parachute opened, but it felt a lot longer.
The parachute opening gave a slight jerk and rotated Hart and me upright as we looked down at our feet, heading toward solid ground.
It was at that point that I really started to look around me. The green grass, the blooming canola and what looked like tiny toy buildings all spread out before me. It all looked extremely flat, in classic Saskatchewan fashion.
Around five minutes later, we glided gently to the ground in a graceful butt-landing.
I was shaky and a little lightheaded for awhile afterward, but I have now checked skydiving off my bucket list and would go again in a heartbeat.
Mission accomplished.