Most Fun I've Ever Had in an Airplane
Snowbird gig was 'the absolute pinnacle of being a pilot.' (Part 6 of 6)
Part 1: Snowbird 3
The Snowbirds, the iconic aerobatic flying squad of the Royal Canadian Air Force, are a three-year gig. After trying out and making the team, there’s a year of training, followed by two years of exhibition air shows. In a typical year, the Snowbirds perform in dozens of locales, including a few south of the border. Bart describes that period of his life as a childhood dream come true,
The absolute pinnacle of being a pilot, for sure. It was the most fun I've ever had in an airplane. The most challenging maneuvers. Flying upside down. I brought back a maneuver that had been gone for a while. I had to teach myself that maneuver. Cuz when you're at that level, not everything's trained. It's just you, your plane with your name on it, and you've got to figure it out.
As a kid, “I would always go to the Toronto Air Show,” he remembers. So it was an enormous thrill to be up there in the sky, with a million people watching below. “The CN Tower is kind of in our way for our setup,” he explains, “we had to get really close to it just to stay on our timings. We're not trying to buzz it, we're required to buzz it.”
He describes ripping by the tower and seeing the startled expressions of people on the observation platform. “They’d hear us coming. You were close enough to see the whites of their eyes. You’d wave at them, and turn the smoke on,” he says, referring to the distinctive white smoke that has been part of Snowbird shows for decades.
Those Tutor CT114 planes are Canadian-built. “They’re sixties vintage,” says Bart. “But they’re just beautiful little jets. They really knew how to build stuff back then, built to last.”
2013 was Bart’s training year. Lisa explains,
In the summertime, when the existing team was on the road, that’s when Bart and the other new guys were training. In the fall, when the team comes back, they always do their last show of the year in front of the home crowd, in Moose Jaw.
So we were sitting there together, watching the show. And the techs [aircraft mechanics] started coming up to me and giving me roses. I'm like, ‘Thank you.’ I was starting to get a little suspicious, like this is weird.
Then Bart grabbed my hand and said, ‘Oh, we’re supposed to come up here.’ He dragged me to the front of the whole crowd, got down on one knee, and proposed - while the Snowbirds were doing the heart in the sky.
The announcer was in on it. Bart paraphrases, “This heart is dedicated to our friends and family as we return from the road. And also to Bart and Lisa. Lisa, Bart has something to ask you.”
Remembering that afternoon, Bart is all smiles, “people were clapping like crazy.” He’d invited her parents, who’d driven in from out of town and had been hiding in the crowd. “So they got to see it, too,” she says.
Bart and Lisa tied the knot the following June. On a Thursday, in between air shows. “Our honeymoon was basically the Kitchener air show that weekend,” she says. “Which was fun. And then it was Canada Day, right after that.”
In Ottawa, she continues, “the Snowbirds got invited to a fancy garden party. And we’re like, ‘We just got married a few days ago.’”
