C17 Display Team – our story

The story of the Display Jump onto Surfers Paradise Beach

Written by Tracey Basman

There was this bold vision from APF CEO Brad Tuner, and Rob Libeau APF Development Manager – of a Display Jump into the World Skydiving Championships Opening Ceremony, landing on Surfers Paradise Beach jumping from a C17 aircraft, Australia’s largest cargo plane. It was bold, it had risk – a skydivers dream come true!

To cut to the chase for those challenged readers, or those that like to know the happy ending before they begin, view channel 9 news report here

The Vision

A hop and pop at lower height with the jumper trailing a flag for every competing nation. The second display team would exit from 13000 feet, build a large formation, possibly up to a 50way, tracking and opening above the spectators on the beach would be spectacular, with all the bright canopies landing in front of the World Meet Competitors and Spectators on Australia’s most famous surf beach at Surfers Paradise. This was not planned for being off to the side further down the beach but right out front of the famous Cavill Avenue marketplace, the hub of the town. The most populated section of the beach with soaring skyscrapers and where tourist and locals alike roam.

I say a bold move because these sorts of displays are not what we do in Australia in such a high-profile location. The risk to Skydiving Australia if anything should go wrong would be catastrophic to our small skydiving community. Many had due reason to be concerned.

Display Approvals

First, would the RAAF, Royal Australian Air Force, agree to such a national aircraft asset for a display jump? What about the City Council, would the Mayor be on side to close off a large section of our most famous surf beach for a bunch of risk taking skydivers to land? What about the beach life guards? Do they want this additional nightmare to deal with saving some skydiver(s) who lands in the water? What about the Water Police… what do they think? What is their take on this topic and would they agree to the vision?

When Brad Turner approached Aussie Bigways to come on board, not everyone was on side. Not everyone was on side at the APF office either. The odds were already stacked against this display jump from going ahead. There were pressures from all sides at the start right through to the very end.

At this point in time it was kind of pie-in-the-sky dreams but the vision was good and let’s see if we can make this happen.

Aussie Bigways Planning Challenges

The planning started back in late 2016, which was awesome for me as the Aussie Bigways calendar was already set for 2017, and only some tweaking required for 2018 – where we had planned for P3 coach Larry Henderson to coach at our 7day Premier Event. The stars were aligning as Larry Henderson was one of the renown international coaches to plan and jump bigways from all sorts of aircraft around the world including C130 Hercules planes; Larry was a major player in organising the 5 x C130 Herc planes used for the World Record 400way in Thailand in 2006, meaning we couldn’t have planned the timing of the display any better with Larry on board.

The first point of contact was of course Larry Henderson, to confirm he could shift our 2018 Premier Event to sync in with the timing for the week prior to the display jump to train not only our Perris 2019 team, but the Display Team for this jump. Not so easy, Larry would be midterm teaching but plenty of time to apply for the leave. Second was a conversation with Dave McEvoy to confirm the planes and location of our Premier Event at Skydive Ramblers, a Drop Zone 2hrs north of the display jump and a perfect location for Bigways. Not a problem, Dave gave the thumbs up and mentioned he was hoping to have two Caravans available for our event. Bonus!

Oops, somewhere along the way the realisation arose that the first weekend of our Premier Event would clash with the NSW State Championships; a few emails and phone calls later and the NSW Parachute Council shifted the competition to November. Phew!

Ok – some hurdles already have been overcome. The dates for the Premier Event 2018 were set, Larry was a ‘probably – hopefully, I’ll do my best to make it happen’, the Aussie Bigways Mentors were on side with the dates and event outline, now we just to have wait for the right timing for a formal announcement to our Bigway Community. The formal announcement came during our Aussie Bigways briefing during the APF Symposium May this year. Now the Display had legs and we were forging forward.

Rejigging the Plan

Brad said to devise some scenarios for the day that he could present to all parties concerned, meaning the RAAF, City Council, Lifeguards and Water Police.

This was not that straight forward. We needed the display team to view the landing area, fit in a practice jump from the C17, then the display itself. The beach landing area was 2hrs south from our event location, Amberley Airbase was 1+hrs west from the landing area. Where would be land for our practice jump? If it was at Toogoolawah, it was 1+ hrs north of Amberley Airbase. So many scenarios to consider factoring in travel times.

The planning for the various scenarios came down to the Aussie Bigways Event Committee consisting of Ben Nordkamp, Martin Klapper and me. Handy for me in July this year I had jumped into Whitehaven Beach during the Bowen Bigway Boogie and could draw on this local and recent display experience (thank you Jonny Goss and Mossy!). Ben Nordkamp had organised jumps from the C17 before and Martin added local knowledge and sound advice.

A few months out it was deemed too dangerous and / or tricky to be jumping the C17 exiting at 140+ knots with a flag attached to one’s leg (would the flag even survive that fast an exit and land with the jumper?). Therefore the flag display team were moved to jumping from our usual Caravan aircraft. Still very exciting but I know everyone on the display team wanted to jump the C17 and there would be some disappointment. An email was sent out to give the heads up so expectations were rejigged. The Flag Display Team would meet at Runaway Bay Sport Centre, the site of the World Meet, to do their practice jump then their display over the beach. (I hope someone from this display team can write their story from the day…I’m sure there were challenges to be overcome as well to pull off such a successful jump!)

Brad’s requirement was 27 Flag Jumpers and up to 50 Bigway Jumpers for the overall display team. Did we have enough? Yes! We had 65+ interested and qualified a month out and ready to go.

But wait, we all needed Personal Flotation Devices for the display being over water. Craig and Trish from Airsafety Solutions to the rescue. Craig offered the team a discounted rate to purchase their PDF on the day and both Trish and Craig got busy building the devices – 35 required in total. Thank you for your support!

Weather & Safety

During the Premier Event, the weather forecast a week out was just dreadful for Saturday 6^th October, the day planned for the display jump.

Rodney Benson, the overall organiser of the display as appointed by the APF, met up at Toogoolawah to brief the team on the overall outline of the display and the safety requirements involved. Yes, you can land at a DZ but can you land in a small designated landing area on a beach in from of spectators? There was much to consider – it was a reality check for some. The team over the next few days reduced from 67+ to 51 plus 3 cameramen.

As the agreement with Brad was to always supply the flag jumpers first, formation jumpers second, that reduced our Bigway from a potential 40way down to a 24way.

Not what we were planning but considering the weather forecast was looking worse as the week progressed and really, the flag jumpers were looking to be the display team that would get to do their jump as a hop and pop, and the C17 jump was looking highly unlikely. A good consolation prize for the Flag Team!

Also to mention here – the news during the week the C17 aircraft was potentially going to be overseas on mission and up until the very last day we had no idea if we would have the C17 aircraft anyway. The C17 was looking less and less likely to go ahead… (sad face)

Regardless, we forged forward in our usual way, overcoming obstacles during the week in the leadup, Paul Barker and Mark Higgins collecting last minute changes to licence details from participants and the team in general. Thank you Sandy in the APF office, and Jenny at Skydive Ramblers, who assisted in collating this information.

For display safety requirements to be met the landing area on the beach was extended. Thank you Rodney for bringing this to our attention and Brad for coordinating with the powers that be to make it happen.

The announcement of who would be in what display team came on Friday afternoon. It was promoted widely to the team the top performers would get to be in the Bigway formation team. I know there would be major disappointment for some. This task is never easy and I’m so grateful that everyone took it on board and performed at their best despite the chosen team. Thank you

C17 Display Team – Our Story

In some small way, the bad weather on Friday and the early close out of our Premier Event meant most participants could make the 2hrs drive south at a reasonable hour to stay overnight, close to Runaway Bay Sport Centre, the meeting place for the Display Team.

Meet time was 6.15am for everyone to board a 57 seater bus to take the 20mins drive to Surfers Paradise Beach to view the landing area and for our safety brief. The clouds were broken, the sun was sort of shining at this point and spirits were high within the team. A quick picture of everyone on the beach before busing back to the Sports Centre.

Now it was raining. Word from Darren Doyle via Ben Nordkamp was the DZ at Toogoolawah was socked in, raining with little chance of any practice jump from the C17.

As the C17 team was now reduced to 27 (24way plus 3 cameramen) Brad wanted us to move our gear (in the rain may I add) to a 30 seater bus for Amberley Air Base. Somewhere here the prognoses changed to a ‘maybe’ from Darren for the practice jump so we moved into action, the clock was ticking now, we were way behind schedule already, we had to get going NOW if we were to make our deadline! We moved all our gear to the 30 seater bus, climbed in to leave and the Asian Driver refused to take the van onto the Airbase… what was that about? The mind boggles. Ok, everyone, OUT NOW! Move your gear  back to the 57 seater bus! Questions, queries, changes, it was madness all at once!

Ok – we are on the bus and lucky we made the change as Ray the bus driver has a lead foot and away we head to Amberley Airbase, and it is raining most of the way may I add…

We arrive at Amberley’s first ‘Checkpoint Charlie’, boarded by men in uniform, given a list to check off, oh no… I’m checking off 27 names not 67+ for a plane that has seating for 100! Oh dear… the looks from the air force men are kind of strange, is this all? Yes…

Bigways without Weights & Practice Jump

I should mention here a small obstacle we had to overcome – a 24way with no lead with skydivers weighing anywhere from 48kgs to 100kgs, those that know physics would understand this feat. For those that know bigway formation flying can truly understand this tall order, especially considering our lighter flying persons were wearing the added appendage of a flotation device on the front to slow them down even more!

Discussions were many between Ben and Darren at the DZ. Is it possible to do the practice jump? We were keen of course to practice the jump wearing no weights.

The half thumbs up were given, the air force sergeant told me we had enough fuel on board to get to Darwin and back. Giddy up! We geared up, practiced the formation and boarded the C17 plane with some hope in hand.

Take off was fast, but not as fast as I remember during the C17 Women’s Day and I have a small chuckle to myself that those pilots that day were messing with us women to get some squeals… nothing like that today. We had a more serious job to do and the C17 team appeared sombre, another day at work. I watched my wrist alti climb at speed.

Once we were allowed to take off our seat belts, everyone was allowed to roam the huge plane, take snaps and chat. We were all excited! The only view out was through two small portholes to the rear. Clouds…

A few loops over the DZ, not that anyone felt those turns, and word was we were going to jump. Butterflies now with the anticipation, everyone got into place; the crew had informed Larry of the light sequence; we backed up into place; 2 lines x 11 abreast on the ramp floating with the rest diving. Ready… next thing we are off! A funny moment as apparently Larry was looking at the wrong side for the nod from the crewman to go so when he was told to go, it really was time to go! Ah, got to love jumping with the unexpected!

We exit in sunshine for a thousand+ feet before sinking into the cloud abyss and rain. What happened to that thin layer of cloud we were supposed to have jumped through? Obviously a sucker hole. It was one of those skies where the cloud is sort of there, sort of not, misty and it is raining. The team did relatively well with being pummeled by rain (it hurts) but we build 22 out of 24 players. A miracle! No lead, can you believe it?!

The Amazing Race Against Time

This box is checked. What’s next? We land, pack quickly and Ray our Bus driver has done an exceptional job of finding the DZ and was on time to meet the team to take the drive back to Amberley Airbase. The clock was still ticking… were we going to make it back in time to board the plane for the display jump?

By this stage it was lunchtime, many had not eaten since breakfast… Ben suggested a pie shop on the way to pick up some food. Janine Hayes quickly took orders on the bus, and we called through to place our order with the pie shop. I flipped out my credit card like it was monopoly money… Davey look the other way! She’ll be right hon.

But another obstacle is now in our path. We are driving on a one lane country road in a huge 57 seater bus and now we are stuck behind a slow caravan enjoying the scenery. No way! Funny but the caravan announces the happy couple’s travelling holiday written on the back including their mobile phone numbers. Who does that? I don’t care and thank our lucky stars Ben picks up the phone and calls Chris, as Dave is probably driving. He was and Chris answers and we have them pull over down the road so we could pass. Sweet!

Lunch – a good old fashion Aussie meat pie with some dead horse (tomato sauce). Yum. LJ Wobker is a newbie pie eater with half on his meat contents on his lap or on his face. Ray the Bus Driver orders a Sausage roll for ease of eating whilst his lead foot is working hard.

The Display Jump

We made it back to Amberley Airbase just in time to put on our gear, do another quick dirt dive, make some changes and board the C17 aircraft.

Again, we had no idea if we would make the display jump but we would give it our best shot. A few passes were made to determine what we were going to do. This time I felt the G force with the ramp down and view turning sideways. Awesome! There was too much cloud at height so we took it down to cloud base of 6000 feet for a hop and pop. Disappointment all round but as we set up on the ramp, the view was so spectacular over Surfers Paradise, I truly don’t think we cared so much at this point. As I wait and enjoy the view from the C17 ramp with Davey, Larry and my skydiving buddies, a rainbow appears in the clouds. Wow, what a magical moment! One can only but smile at this point.

Due to the high exit speed we decide two groups and two passes. Exit, track a little way, open and land. The faster canopy pilots first, the lower winged canopy pilots second to spread out the landings. Janine Hayes was on her Accuracy Canopy as an added highlight for the crowd. Plus it gave her extra weight if we were to go ahead with the Bigway formation. Nice thinking J9!

As I exit with my line, my heart misses a beat. I truly can’t believe this is finally going ahead after all that has happened. Two years in the planning. So many obstacles to overcome. As I’m tracking away it is raining. Water is running over my sponsored Cookie helmet visor (!), I open and fight back tears of joy of having come out the other side of some battle. Despite the gloomy weather day the view is spectacular. There are people surfing where we are to land. The crowd is large. The landing area is HUGE (thank you Brad and Rodney!)

We are told to land north, which by the way just happened to be downwind. I’m so light under my own canopy wearing no weights I’m up with J9 with her large accuracy canopy. I see LG ahead. Wow, what a sight. I turn to land, turning just above LG, again another great moment, and prepare for a fast landing, on soft sand… not that easy but the flare was good and the landing held despite sinking with every step. Phew!

The moment was so surreal. At this point I wish I was a little naive to enjoy and surround myself with the spectators but the moment is overwhelming with all things considered. Some pictures, some chats before heading back to our trusty Ray Ride back to Runaway Bay Sports Centre. The bus is full of all the display team, huge smiles all round. Wow, we did it! What a huge accomplishment for everyone!

Thank you!

I would like to thank first Brad Turner and Rob Libeau for trusting this very important display jump to the Aussie Bigways Team. It proved to be a winner!

Thank you, Brad Turner, for all the hard work you put in to pull off the display jump that will go down in history as one of Australia’s best and most prestigious. Brad made comment that the work that was put into this display jump equaled that of the entire organisation of the World Meet! I truly believe it Brad!

Thank you to Ben and Martin of the Event Committee for the display logistics.

Thanks to Ben Nordkamp that managed the team logistics on the day.

Thank you to Larry Henderson for the formation and bigway coaching and logistics.

Thank you Rodney Benson for attending Skydive Ramblers prior to the display to brief the team, then on the day. Rodney was the LDO for the Flag Jumping Team.

Thank you Alan Moss for the LDO work for the C17 display team.

Kris Sieczkowski, fighter pilot and instructor, was our liaison with the RAAF pilots and crew. Kris is the son of a legend in our sport, Andy Ski. No wonder he is fast becoming a legend himself! Thanks for your help Kris, as it was the best spotting and overall smooth sailing jump on the day.

Thank you to Ray our trusty lead footed bus driver, who got us where we needed to be in a timely, most entertaining fashion.

Thank you last but not least to our Flag Team and Display Team participants. WELL DONE TEAM!!!

Aussie Bigways Display Team

Some tid bits of information collected by Janine Hayes about members of the Display Team. List show names, occupation, total jump numbers and years in sport. The list in interesting in that it highlights the diverse nature of those in our sport, and that years in sport, talent, jump numbers and guts to jump high profile displays have little correlation!

Display Team

Adrian Bramwell Sales Rep 630 10
Adrian Ferguson (Fergs) Gardner 750 8
Alan Moss – (Mossy) Facilitator 14, 300 27
Alex Cattaneo Paramedic 610 3
Alistair Bates Retired 830 26
Andrew Hamilton Mulholland Number Cruncher 2,900 42
Ben Nordkamp Data Base Specialist 11,600 34
Brandon Shortland Union Official 740 8
Calder Chernoff Drouge Chucker 6,000 24
Christian Peric Engineer 1,600 25
Cullen Andrew Habel Uni Lecturer 2,000 19
Daniel Gray Technician 550 3
David Girvin Roof Tiler 1,400 14
David Loncasty Engineer 5,800 36
Donald Gordon Woodland Postie 10,600 35
Douglas John Pryor Electrician 2,830 26
Graeme Anthony John White (G-Train) Adult Entertainment Actor 1,220 5
Guy Taylor Roofer 2,060 43
Helen Mahoney Marketer 2,750 19
Ian Johnson Army 900 6
Ian Robertson Volunteer 4,956 33
Janine Hayes (J9) Project Manager 4,395 37
John Winkler Retired 2,850 28
Joseph Clarke(Rummy) Health & Safety Manager 860 4
Joshua Leussink Packer and Camera Flyer 580 5.5
Karen Fuller General Practitioner 3,050 22
Kelly Brennan Media/Communications 2,700 27
Kenneth John Hills (Hillsy) Self Employed 6,000 48
Kerry Ross Hook Investor 750 4
Kristofor Stefan Sieczkowski Jet Pilot and Instructor 500 5
Larry Henderson Teacher 6,500 43
Laurence Garceau (LG) Pharmaceutical Consultant 2,500 13
Lawrence J Wobker (LJ). Engineer 5,000 19
Leanna Jayne Lewis Sales Rep 559 5
Leon Black. Director of Inspiration 530 5
Mark Edward Szulmayer Retired 6,060 29
Martin Maximillian Klapper Lawyer 973 7
Maurice Mathey (Mo Mo) Telemetry Technician 1,600 8
Michael Cameron Hardy IT. 5,700 30
Michael Paris (Mickey) Instrument Electrical Technician 730 26
Mike Dyer Manager 6,895 45
Natisha Dingle Professional Abseiler 960 11
Nigel Ackroyd Surgeon 600 12
Paul Baker Drouge Chucker 3,500 13
Peter Albert McKenzie IT 950 22
Sandy Nieuwenhoven Medical Scientist 1,300 16
Skye Kalms Vet Nurse Student 800 5
Stephen Brett Carpenter 270 3
Stephen Smedley Tandem instructor 1,300 35
Steve Dines Construction 9,000 34
Steve Fitch Photographer 6,900 35
Terry Irving Skydiving Industry 5,700 34
Tracey Basman Accountant 3,100 15
Yukari Hashimoto Sales Clerk 1,700 21