Weather changes Sky Fest’s plans
Onlookers on Sherkston Shore’s Wyldewood Beach cheered as two skydivers, trailing smoke, jumped from a Cessna 182 over the waters of Lake Erie and made quick landings on the sandy shoreline.
The two were taking part Sky Fest 2018, marking 99 years to the day when plane mechanic Frank Ellis made a jump out of a Curtis Jenny biplane, landing in the waters of Crystal Beach.
Ellis was the first Canadian to ever parachute from a plane, using a parachute borrowed from Leslie Irvin, an American who made the first premeditated jump from a plane in 1919 and later formed Irving Air Chute Co. in Buffalo.
Janie Wallace, of Ridgeway based Geronimo! Skydiving Team, said she and her husband, John, had planned to hold Thursday’s event at Crystal Beach but had to move because of renovation construction. It had been held there the past two years and she said Sherkston opened up to let them run the festival there.
The festival, which featured live music, had skydivers jump at least three times from the Cessna flown out of Wainfleet’s Skydive Burnaby. There were plane flybys and a live broadcast from the Cessna by 91.7 Giant FM.
It was to include a group jump from a Douglas DC-3 Dakota from the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum.
“Our plans had to change a bit due to thunderstorms all around us. There will be no DC-3 because of the weather,” Wallace said.
She said the Geronimo! Skydiving Team was formed in 1981 and there are plans to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Ellis’s jump next year.