Riding shotgun with the Snowbirds

Loved by airshow audiences across North America, the Royal Canadian Air Force Snowbirds – officially known as 431 Air Demonstration Squadron – spend the off-season training at their home base in Moose Jaw, Sask. From November to May, they practice a variety of airshow routines so that the show will always go on, except in the most extreme weather conditions. During airshow season, the Snowbirds invite a few lucky members of the media to fly with them as they travel across the country. They don’t hand these opportunities out like candy, so when I was invited to go along, it only took about half a millisecond to accept!

With great excitement – and yes, several butterflies, too – I arrived at the Region of Waterloo International Airport on May 31, where the Snowbirds had set up temporary camp for the 2013 Waterloo Air Show. The team’s public affairs officer, Capt Thomas Edelson, had sent advance instructions, which had I followed to the letter: have a good breakfast (no citrus); drink lots of water; wear sturdy footwear. Check, check, and check. I got out of my car and headed into the Waterloo Wellington Flight Centre, where I was ushered upstairs for a pre-flight medical performed by the Snowbirds’ flight surgeon, Maj Jane Cruchley. After a blood pressure check (which surprisingly indicated that I was calm), a health questionnaire, and some stretching demonstrations that felt weirdly like a yoga class, I was cleared for flight. 

Next door, the Snowbirds had just finished their morning briefing. Seated around a long table, they looked cool and relaxed. I’m pretty sure that by this point, they couldn’t have said the same about me. Nevertheless, I managed to strike up a passable conversation with my assigned pilot, Capt Gregg Wiebe. He flies Snowbird 4, in the first line astern position. A native of Kenora, Ont., the 51-year-old Wiebe has had a long and rewarding military career since joining the Canadian Forces in 1982. He has logged more than 7,700 hours of military flying, including 3,600 hours on the CT-114 Tutor jet, some of those as an instructor. He has been with the Snowbirds since 2004, and is currently serving his second year as a member of the air demonstration team. He plans to retire soon, but there’s no doubt that Wiebe will wrap up his career with one of the coolest jobs in aviation! 

We were scheduled to take off at 10:40 a.m., so there wasn’t a lot of chit chat. It was time to suit up. Corp Tiffany Burley handed me a one-piece flight suit, two pairs of gloves, a skull cap and a helmet. On my way out to do the seat check, I grabbed three “boarding passes” – you may have seen these little white bags in the seat back pocket during your last airline flight – and stuffed them into one of the flight suit’s handy zippered pockets. You can never be too prepared.

I followed Burley outside to the Snowbirds’ mobile support vehicle, a tractor trailer filled with all the necessary supplies to keep the squadron flying. Just inside the doors – looking oddly out of place – was a seat from a CT-114 Tutor. I struggled into a heavy parachute pack and settled into the seat. Burley went through a number of “what to do if” scenarios, coaching me along as I fumbled with about a zillion straps and cords, trying to remember that one of them – which one was it, now? – was live, and if pulled, would deploy the parachute! As we sat there, the sun was already beating down, heating up the trailer like a tin can. At a humid 28C, I have to admit I was not particularly looking forward to roasting inside my Top Gun-type helmet and mask.

Once the seat check was done, we went back inside to rendezvous with the others, who were all in the final stages of preparation. Edelson rounded us up and we headed down to the ramp, trooping along in our borrowed flight suits and lugging a variety of audio-visual recording equipment. After a quick warning about avoiding FOD – foreign object damage caused by materials dropped on the tarmac and later sucked into engines – we waddled off to our various aircraft, parachute packs in tow. 

Alongside jet number 4, I met aviation technician Corp Annie Bourassa, who was incredibly helpful. She got me into the left seat of the Tutor and helped me strap in. With a few last minute instructions, Bourassa headed off to the front of the jet while Wiebe climbed into the right seat. And that’s when things really got exciting! 

After the necessary checks, helmets were donned, the canopy was closed, and we were rolling – taxiing in formation down the ramp to line up for takeoff. Along the way, we passed members of the Snowbirds’ ground team, who visually inspected each jet before flashing the thumbs-up sign to the pilots. 

By this point, everything seemed a bit surreal. Was I really going flying with the Snowbirds? (In fact, I had already been flying with them all week in my dreams!) 

But this was no dream, as I was soon to find out.

Wiebe had explained to me that the Snowbirds would be practising what is called a “flat show” during our flight. The flat show is the least aggressive of the three types of shows performed by the team, with the others being the “high show” and the “low show.” Weather dictates which version of the act will be performed, with high shows being the most aerobatic and therefore reserved for perfect days with high ceilings and unrestricted visibility. The low show is chosen when conditions are not quite as good, and flat shows are reserved for days that are flyable, but nowhere near ideal. Still, said Wiebe, “we’ll be pulling anywhere from two-and-a-half to three Gs.” I was relieved to hear that we’d be practising the least aggressive program.  

We took off in groups of three, smoothly lifting off into a perfect blue sky. Once everyone was airborne, the team formed up and proceeded to fly over Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo, and Cambridge. Wiebe said the Snowbirds will typically overfly host cities to encourage attendance at upcoming airshows. During this phase of the mostly straight-and-level flight, my head felt like it was on a swivel, as I craned my neck first one way and then the other, trying to capture the experience with my camera. As we followed just underneath Snowbird 1 – flown by team lead Maj Wayne Mott – I remember looking up in awe. He was so close it seemed that if we popped our canopy, I could reach up and touch his jet. I took one photo in particular that really captures this incredible moment – and at the same time, it also illustrates just how close 1.2 metres can be! 

I asked Wiebe to share the secret of staying in perfect position. “See that second white diamond on his belly? I just keep my eyes on that, and line him up in the frame of my windscreen,” he said. 

This was the simplified civilian explanation, to be sure. Snowbirds train endlessly to maintain the perfect separation between their aircraft and the one adjacent to them. Canadian Skies’ test pilot, Rob Erdos, “tried out” for the famous aerobatic team last year. He explained to me that essentially, each team member looks at his wingman to gauge separation, except the team lead, who steers the formation through space. However, each pilot must also maintain the “big picture” view of the formation, so they can react to group movements – while also ignoring small hiccups with individual aircraft, caused by turbulence, for example. It takes a lot of practice, but when it’s done well – the way the Snowbirds do it – nine jets look as if they are smoothly travelling along on the same trajectory.

After our publicity tour, the team came back to practice maneuvers from the flat show repertoire. Although we had made some gentle turns so far, things got a lot more interesting from this point on. I remember a good deal of turning and banking, and the feeling of being pushed down and moulded into the shape of the Tutor’s seat. My camera became extremely heavy, and my arms got very tired of lifting it. It all just seemed like too much effort. In the meantime, it began to get very hot inside my flight suit; uncomfortably hot, in fact.

Wiebe turned to me and said, “Well, that was about three Gs, would you like to try four?”

Over the span of about two seconds, my mind and body duked it out, but my body won. “Ummm, that was cool, but… I don’t think so,” I mumbled into my mask.

I was relieved when the team began to circle around the airfield, performing reconnaissance on the visual markers the Snowbirds would need to reference during the airshow.  

Although we had taken off as a team, we landed individually, taxiing in past airshow staff and spectators, before we ended up right back where we had started, perfectly aligned along the ramp. As the canopy popped up, Bourassa brought us a bottle of icy cold water. It was the best thing I ever tasted!

After the requisite post-flight photos, we trooped back inside, looking considerably more bedraggled than when we had left, but all wearing identical ear-to-ear grins. 

This year, the Snowbirds are celebrating two big anniversaries: it’s been 70 years since 431 Squadron was founded as a bomber squadron during World War II; as well, 2013 marks 50 years of the team flying the Canadian designed and built CT-114 Tutor aircraft.

As Canadian ambassadors, the Snowbirds do us proud. As Wiebe put it, “Our main job is to represent the professionalism, teamwork and dedication of the RCAF in front of the North American public.”  

For team members, that mission involves a lot more than thrilling airshow spectators with their aerobatic prowess. At each stop, the Snowbirds will speak at schools, visit hospitals, and attend other public engagements. 

When the average Canadian is asked to name the first thing they think of when they hear the word “airshow,” chances are good that it would be the Snowbirds. 

The chance to fly with the iconic aerobatic team was a once in a lifetime opportunity – something to be seized and relived over and over again, when my desk job gets just a little bit boring.

And, for those of you who are wondering whether I had to use my “boarding pass” – the answer is yes. But, I have no shame. As one of our writers put it, I’ve earned not only bragging rights, but bagging rights, too!