Denaye Giroux Blog: Top Gun

This past weekend I got to experience something that not many people get a chance to do in their lifetime. The opportunity that I was given to fly in a Snowbird with Major Denis Bandet was something I will never forget and is by far one of the coolest experiences of my life !

Brendon and I drove up to Lethbridge on Thursday and arrived at the airport just in time for my medicals, seat checks and suit fitment. We met Bhodie Eddie who was the other racer of the group, 17 years old from Saskatoon and he races superbikes. There were 2 Media personal, a West Jet pilot and another pilot from Montana who would get the same experience to fly in a Snowbird. We all went through a medical exam to make sure there weren’t any health issues that would affect us at high speeds, G forces or any other factors that might come into play. In my last blog I had mentioned that the weight requirement for the ejection seats is 130lbs-209lbs, if we were a pound over or a pound less than that there would be no chance of going up in the air, Thankfully I made it in by a hair! Jeff, one of the Media from Calgary was telling me he lost 37 pounds so that he could take this opportunity.

When I came down from the Medical room I noticed that Bhodie was gone, I asked Brendon where he went and he said Bhodie went for his fitment but was told he was too small to fit the parachute pack so they sent him home. At that point I began to freak out because I was very similar in size to him, so I kept thinking there would be no way I would fit the pack either. As I began my fitment I noticed Bhodie was back and they rigged something up for him and myself so we could go up.

The group was taken over one by one out to the runway where they had 2 model seats from the Snowbird so we could get the low down on how to strap ourselves in, eject ourselves, and how to unstrap everything in a hurry if needed. An hour is not long enough to remember everything that we did! I was constantly going through everything later that night so I wouldn’t forget. They had a good rhyme to go along with getting out of all of the straps of the seat and parachute in case there was a fire. They rhyme was… Oxygen 1,2,3, Life Belt, Landyard, QRB, Left, Right, Walk out. Now picture yourself strapped into a tight seat undoing numerous buttons, clips and belts to get out of the aircraft before the thing blows up! Or to eject yourself from the Jet while up in the air the pilot would say Abandon Aircraft, EJECT, EJECT, EJECT.

The passenger would pull hard on the two seat bars below to eject out of the aircraft at 20G’s. our code was to Eject on the first EJECT he says, and the pilot ejects on the 3rd, if we weren’t out by the 3rd he would leave without us. After ejecting from the aircraft, the parachute would open automatically if it didn’t there was a second parachute pull cord on the left side of the harness we were wearing which we would have to pull on, after that we would have to release the seat from below us as it adds an extra 40 pounds, so to drop our seat there was a yellow pull bar on the right side which would release the seat. After all of this we were told that when we hit the ground, try to land on your side and roll out the landing. Listening in on this orientation was a MUST because if you didn’t it would be your own life in your hands.

Friday Morning all of the pilots made their way in to greet us, each and every one of them were welcoming and had I have nothing but good things to say about all of them. The passengers got the chance to sit in on the Snowbird Briefing, where they went over weather conditions, wind conditions and the exact formations they would be doing with us. They ran through the exact routine as if we were up in the air, with the Captain giving the same orders he would as if they were all in the air doing the routine. We were then taken to the runway and strapped into our seats which were side by side with our Pilots. Denis was great to be with, he explained everything in complete detail of what he was doing and what we would be doing up there.

When we took off I could barely feel the moment when we left the ground, it was so smooth! (I wish all commercial air flights were like that) After being in the air for a bit Denis said to hold on to my side of the steering joystick so I did and followed his movements of how he was moving the plane around, he then told me to steer for a bit and took his hands off his side of the joystick and said I was flying the plane, it was an amazing experience being able to control it myself for a bit following the plane in front of us. He then dipped the plane down and pulled it back up giving me my first sensation of 3 G’s. Imagine going on a roller coaster and getting sucked into the back of your seat. Now imagine that feeling 2x greater. It was completely different from any roller coaster ride I had ever been on. We had done some Turning G’s and the Snowbirds did a few of their formations side by side, it was a tamed down routine of what they normally would do. No flips or rotations, which was probably a good thing, as I did get sick up there! Which is expected for most passengers. We got to experience a half hour flight with them and experience what it was like to be a Snowbird. Normally they would hit up to 5G’s, but because we had never experienced that type of feeling before they had told us that most likely we would get knocked out because of the pressure. So thank goodness we never did that! haha

After the flight we went back up to the room with the pilots where they did their debriefing. During our flight they had someone on the ground videotaping the entire routine. They would playback the Flight on the TV and would pick apart everything they did wrong, or what needed to be changed to make the show Perfect. There were no egos in that room, everyone would have their chance to say what they did wrong or what needed to be improved, amazing to see the team work and connection they all had with each other.

I cannot thank Denis enough for giving me this opportunity, with both of us having a motocross background I can relate what he kept saying about the similarities of flying one of these planes and racing motocross.

This experience is something I will never forget and I will never look at another air show the same. I have a lot of respect for these guys and what they do. It takes true talent and precision to become a snowbird and not everyone gets a chance to do it. These guys are the Villipotos and Dungeys of their sport in the Aviation world.

Denaye