Razzle dazzle: Canada’s Snowbirds amaze crowd with aerobatic maneuvers, skywriting

Royal Canadian Air Force Capt. Scott Boyd waves to spectators after a performance by the Canadian Forces Snowbirds during the Birds and Brews airshow at the Columbus Municipal Airport in Columbus, Ind., Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2019. Mike Wolanin | The Republic

The excitement was at full throttle as Canada’s national military flight demonstration team took to the skies above Columbus Municipal Airport.

Throngs of spectators with binoculars and cameras packed the airport Wednesday afternoon in lawn chairs and at tables inside hangars, looking overhead to watch the Canadian Forces Snowbirds perform a thrilling series of precision aerobatic maneuvers. Well over 7,000 people attended the event, called “Birds and Brews,” organizers said.

Airport director Brian Payne said attendance was “way more than we ever had before” for an event at the airport. Blackerby’s Hangar 5 Restaurant sold about 2,800 drinks, Payne said.

“We filled all the parking lots,” he said.

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At speeds ranging from 115 miles per hour to close to 370 miles per hour, the Snowbirds performed an assortment of loops, splits and rolls in formations with up to nine planes. In some of the formations, the planes were a breathtaking 4 feet from each other.

One maneuver, called the “Maple Split,” featured all nine planes in formation, each with blazing smoke trails billowing from their exhaust, flying directly toward the crowd. The planes then split off at different angles, creating an image in the sky much like the leaf on the Canadian flag.

The pilots also performed several head-on passes in which the two airplanes appear to fly directly at each other before twisting and turning in the air to miss each other. The pilots aim for the planes be approximately 33 feet away from each other during the passes.

At one point, two Snowbirds pilots drew a heart in the sky above Columbus.

Flying ‘quite close’

“For myself, we do get quite close,” said Capt. Ari Mahajan, who has been a Snowbirds pilot since November 2017.

“Initially, when you’re training, it might be a little bit stressful. But the training and our process of training is so good that you eventually just get the hang of it. Once you’re flying in close formation, you kind of get into your flow and do your thing. It’s a lot of fun.”

Mahajan pilots the No. 11 plane, but does not perform with the nine-pilot demonstration group. He was the play-by-play and commentary announcer during Wednesday’s performance.

Mahajan said Snowbirds pilots typically spend two years with the squadron. Around three to four pilots leave each year after the performance season ends in October. New Snowbirds pilots are chosen each year during a two-week tryout. Successful candidates then take a course to learn how to fly the Canadair CT-114 Tutor aircraft used by the Snowbirds.

The biggest challenge to flying in formation is windy conditions, Mahajan said.

“It becomes quite bumpy in the air, so there is a lot of movements throughout the formation. So that’s when it becomes extremely challenging to fly in formation,” he said. “But when it’s nice and smooth out, honestly, the process of training is so good that you get very good at flying these maneuvers in close formation.”

Based in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada, the Snowbirds are a squadron with a traveling show team of 24 Canadian military personnel. Their Canadair CT-114 Tutor planes were used by the Canadian military as a pilot-training aircraft from 1963 to 2000. The planes are about 31.9 feet long, 9.3 feet tall and have a wingspan of 36.5 feet.

Columbus is one of just 11 U.S. cities to host the Snowbirds this year.

The Snowbirds arrived in Columbus on Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday, about half of the Snowbirds’ personnel went on a walking architecture tour of Columbus led by Kelly Wilson, J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program director. The tour started at the Republic building and ended at the Bartholomew County Library plaza, said Payne, who also went on the tour.

The Snowbirds are Canada’s only air force jet demonstration team. The United States has two, U.S. Navy Blue Angels and the U.S Air Force Thunderbirds.

Putting on a show

The performance began with all nine planes performing a loop before flying over the crowd. But that was not the way the Snowbirds’ intended to start their routine.

“We’ve had a little ‘oopsy’ here,” Mahajan told the cheering crowd members, who appeared to not know that something had gone awry. “We made a mistake, so what we’re going to do is turn the jets around and restart our show.”

The restarted show included three consecutive loops in three different directions, all done in formation. At times, the planes changed formations while performing a loop, and at least in a couple occasions during the show, changed formations while upside down.

After the show, Mahajan said the commanding pilot had “forgot to call one of the formations” at the beginning of the show.

“It’s not that these pilots are perfect,” he said. “They make a lot of errors, but they’re confined to a small error box. So you just got to try to stay within it.”

Allen George, 61, of Columbus, a self-described “aviation buff” who has been to “quite a few airshows,” said he was impressed by the Snowbirds.

“The Canadians were absolutely awesome,” George said. “…I would put (the Snowbirds) up there with the Blue Angels because they’re fantastic. I’d put them right up there with the top of the best. When they were criss-crossing like they were almost hitting each other, that was impressive. They’d come in head on and then make turns and then pass each other up close, cockpit-to-cockpit essentially.”

Rick Martinez, 51, of Columbus said Wednesday’s performance was the first airshow he had ever attended.

“I used to collect planes when I was younger, and to come out and finally see an airshow, it’s kind of cool,” Martinez said. “I’ve never been to one. I’ve lived here basically my whole life.”

Dena Dudley, 61, of Columbus said the airshow was better than she thought it would be.

“How they can stay in formation and that close to each other, that was just unbelievable to me,” she said.

The Birds and Brews event also featured a parachute jump from a C-130 Hercules flown by the Kentucky Air National Guard 123rd Airlift Wing, and a flyover of a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker, an aerial refueling aircraft that has been in service since 1956, from the Grissom Air Reserve Base 434 Air Refueling Wing, located north of Kokomo.

After the parachute jump, at least a couple hundred people lined up to tour the C-130 Hercules.

Payne said the airshow was a success and exceeded his expectations, especially given that it was held on a weeknight.

“It’s absolutely the most successful one we’ve ever had,” Payne said.

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Visit rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/en/snowbirds/index.page for more information about the Canadian Forces Snowbirds.

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ZwanzigZ brewed up a special beer to welcome the Canadian Forces Snowbirds. The beer, called Formation Fermentation, is an India Pale Ale made with pale malt and pilsner malt from Canada.

The beer will be available at ZwanzigZ Pizza, located at 1038 Lafayette Ave., while supplies last, said Mike Rybinski, brewmaster at ZwanzigZ. Rybinski said there are just a few cases of the beer left.

Owner Kurt Zwanzig said the craft brewery is considering making two or three more batches of the beer, but nothing has been decided at this time.

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