Air Farce One - The inaugural trip of JSA-TimPot airlines.

The staff at Aviation Beauport said that they had seen some funny people turn up in their offices, but never so many, and not all for the same plane. By 1.30 Friday 7 May their departures area was full of skydivers, a pile of rigs, sleeping bags and Z1 helmets. They seemed quietly amused by the whole thing.

Seven jumpers (TimP, RichP, KevD, StuC, MattH, Dreadlocked Chris and Nick) together with three sensible people (Rozena, her brother Chris and Nick’s girlfriend Vicki) piled into the 10-seater twin jet Cessna Citation, not too sure what to expect, beyond comfy seats. It was a bright day, dotted clouds, and a brisk breeze.

Took off right on time, and were told to turn a smidgen left off the runway, which pointed us directly at Vannes, so took a straight line there which was our first slice of luck (an indirect route means more time in air = more expensive flight). Couldn’t believe how smooth the flight was, it was like coasting through butter. Up to a cruising speed of 300+mph, watching the clouds from the cockpit felt like horizontal freefall, but got minimal turbulence. This was probably a good thing, because it turned out that Vicki was a nervous flyer. About halfway there French ATC warned us that we had to be careful going into Vannes. ‘You do know there are parachutists in the air?’ Out of two responses – ‘of course we know’ and ‘yahey, they’re jumping!’ - we chose the second.

Luckily there wasn’t anyone in the air for our approach so we slid straight in, soft landing, plenty of runway left. Funny how Tim can do that in a plane . . . After parking up and checking to see if les douanes had turned up to frisk us, everyone wandered over to the centre, and some of us got ticked off for walking over the runway. Well, we could see the black and white Porter parked up, and no private flights land on the grass, so couldn’t see the problem. Except the Pink Flamingo came in that evening, so maybe they had a slight point.

Getting signed in can be a nightmare in Vannes; some years it can take 20 minutes, one time it took over two hours and a 30-page fax from the BPA. And that’s without mentioning the nightmare that Matt and Chris had had last year. But this time it went smoothly, maybe because the lush and pouting office girl was so taken with our rakish charm, and maybe because Eric had been over this with Marin the week before and they knew what to expect. And, it has to be said, maybe because there was a new DT.

Everyone was signed in within the hour, and Kev and I even found that we had money on the system from years before.

Jean-Claude was the DT for the weekend, so we said hello, tried to look like we knew what we were doing and manifested ourselves. No draconian checks on canopy size (they were even reasonable about Tim jumping a 190), all our paperwork said to be in good order, Job coming over to use his one English phrase (‘Ow aah you?’), it seemed too good to be true. Sure enough, soon after we’d got out kit ready, the clouds rolled in. Then the rain. Then the torrential rain. Then the hail. We weren’t too disheartened, because the forecast for Saturday was good.

But then the rain lifted, and small patches of blue started appearing in the sky. The patches got bigger until JC shrugged and said he’d put a load up. And because some of the French jumpers had gone home when the heavens opened, they bumped Equipe Jersey forward because we could fill the plane. They sent Job with us, to keep an eye on us. But as he was first out we could have funnelled an 8-way if we’d wanted – as it was I did a 2-way with Kev, and Tim went out on a solo. The jump was good, but on landing I found that someone had shortened my brake lines and raised the ground by a foot. I did stand up the landing – it’s just that the standing up happened just after the falling down.

Herve wandered into the hanger while I was packing and asked about my steering lines, because I’d popped up the end of my flare beautifully. "Je crois que ce n’est pas le materiel, c’est le pilot," I said. He laughed and walked off.

We had taxis booked for Vannes, but it was still tempting to hang on, especially when they asked us if we wanted an extra sunset load. Still, we headed into town, found the restaurant where Rozena had booked us, got over the fact that we were invisible to the waitress quite quickly, and refuelled – although the Irish coffees might have been a mistake.

Woke up the next day and went for a run to the assault course. Saw a small deer (muntjak?) and got attacked by some sort of hawk while going round the course, got back having smoothed out the hangover. Herve was in the bar and a couple of café noirs got my brain working again – not a lot of sleep due to the snoring relay operated by the four or us in the bunk room. Special mention to Chris, who was woken up by Matt’s ‘Jesus Chris’, and instantly blamed Stu for the noise. Stu, at this time, was in a tent, outside, a hundred yards away. Man, that boy can snore.

Some people had also been woken by an early morning text from MikeA, wondering what the weather was like at 6.30am. The rude answers he got must have encouraged him to come down, because we saw him turn up as we were walking out for our first lift of the day.

Everyone got in a few jumps, including Nick taking Chris on his first headdown, and Matt doing a 2-way with Stu. Nick led a track dive as well, which sounded excellent, Kev almost grabbing him by the foot as they went along. The wind came up in the afternoon and was a little gusty all day, so we took an extended lunch break (after liberating food from the supermarket) in our picnic area while the French all stayed inside. In the warm. Later on when the sun came out we lay on the target mat, knowing that anyone trying to do an accuracy jump under a 7-cell would be found in the Channel sometime next week. Kev showed a rare talent for impersonating an elephant seal. It wasn’t pole dancing, but wasn’t a bad effort.

The last jump of the day was the best, like it often is. Planned a 3-way with Tim and Kev, got out of the door into a nice stable star, although it was upside down. Eventually it flipped and we got comfy, then went for an accordion. That went ratshit, and Tim had slipped away below us, so we broke and swooped him, got there in about five seconds, which felt good. Screamed away and broke and tracked. All three landings were tippy toe, despite the winds.

Packed and managed to squeeze in a quick beer at the DZ (cheers Matt) before ordering taxis. Nick and Stu were on the last load, so we went looking for the restaurant on our own with no idea where it was, but the dumb luck that was with us all weekend steered us right there. Great meal (moules frites!), and everyone staggered out down to the port where the taxi meister Rozena had corralled some cabs.

After getting back to the DZ there may have been more wine, a little smoking and fireworks set off. But that was nothing to do with us.

Sunday was supposed to be a bad day for the weather, but it didn’t look too awful when we got up, although the black and white stayed in the hangar for a long time. After lunch JC came over and asked for guinea pigs to go up on a load to see how thick the cloud was. It didn’t look too bad, but it was light wispy stuff that started at 2K and went on to at least 7K, when the pilot shook his head and took us back down. It was a shame, but the dive we’d planned with Nick filming wouldn’t have come off anyway.

It didn’t look like improving, so we got on with packing our gear and saying goodbye. Mike drove some of the kit back to the plane before heading up to Chateau Aubert, and Job insisted on ferrying the rest of us over, and said next time we came we must get a lift from the airport as well. ‘Call the tower,’ he said, ‘they’ll tell us to come and get you.’ Aw.

After a few shots around Air Farce One, and a beer in the bar, we loaded up the plane, waited for a little single prop to take off (ah, sweet), and taxied down the runway. Another HUGE private jet had turned up, but we decided that we preferred ours. Which cost a little less than the $33 million penis extension some inadequate had bought.

Then there was a quick takeoff in our $10 million penis enlargement, a 90 degree bank back over the airfield, and a flypast for the centre followed by a terrific pull up that made everyone scream in delight – possibly tinged with fear in some cases. The ATC even thanked us for the flypast.

The trip back went quickly, no sooner at 13,500 feet than we spotted Jersey and started to descend, watching the clouds end abruptly over St Malo. Tim gave Vicki a quick rundown on why the plane wasn’t about to fall out of the sky, and Matt and Chris took some footage of AF1 from the flight deck.

A sweet landing and we taxied round to Aviation Beauport, left Tim to sort out the plane and headed down to the Aero Club. Aviation Beauport, seeing a few of us walking down to the club, called them back, saying that Aviation Beauport customers couldn’t just walk there. They sent them a van. Aw.

Back in the Aero Club, Stu refused to allow anyone buy a drink, and we met up with Richard Wainwright, just back from Sebastian with his AFF completed. Out into the marquee area at the back, everyone drank innumerable toasts (Tim had arrived by then).

The only problem with the trip is how to top it. For the first time in a couple of years, Vannes felt like the place it was when we first went there. And for the first time ever, it’s only 20 minutes away . . .

RIchard 'Skygod' Pedley.
17th May 2004