Flying in a Hercules Aircraft

Heroes Remember

Flying in a Hercules Aircraft

Transcript

We went down to Gagetown, we flew down from Edmonton to Gagetown and the last from Montreal on we flew down to 300 feet all the way to Fredericton in a Herc, and that was the whole regiment, there were three Hercs, all full of jumpers, static line jumpers as well as MFP jumpers, military free fall jumpers. And it was kind of interesting because if you have never flown low level in a Herc, you have never flown because it's got to be the roughest ride you ever had in your life and a lot of people in a closed aircraft, like a Herc, no windows, you can't see out and sometimes people start getting sick and, of course, the smell doesn't leave the air craft, everybody sees it, so you wind up passing a big black garbage bag around and a lot of the young fellows did get sick. All of a sudden it got really smooth and we were wondering why and we found out because they opened the back gate and we were on the ground. We didn't realize that we were landing. The next day they were going to go up and do a big drop. They were going to drop us first at 10,000 feet and then they were going to drop the pathfinders to lay out the area for the jump, the main drop to jump, like they set up the drop zone for the main body of men but the weather was too bad for them to jump and they couldn't jump and the only people to jump were the MFP people. So we were rigged in full combat gear with rucksacks and weapons and camouflage on our face and everything and being an air force guy this was kind of interesting, a lot of fun, but five of us went up and we actually did a jump and, actually it was ten of us, five of us in my little group, we had two groups of five. And we jumped out in the field and nobody could see us until we opened our parachutes and by then we were on the ground so we just disappeared into the ground like we were supposed to and the group who was watching us was a couple of generals and stuff and they thought that was quite impressive. You drop ten people and you can't see them, you know, until they land and you don't hear the aircraft, you don't see nothing until these parachutes all of a sudden open in front of you and then the guys are on the ground and you can't see them anymore so we accomplished our task.

Description

Mr. Batt describes flying low level in the Hercules and his successful parachute jump exercise.

Gordon Batt

Mr. Gordon Batt was born November 25, 1945 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. After finishing high school, Mr. Batt enrolled in the air cadets and decided to join active service with the Air Force as a result of his love of flying. He spent a great deal of his military career in Canada, but spent time overseas in France with ground crew operations as an armament systems technician and participated in operations with the CF104, Hercules and Argus aircraft. Mr. Batt participated in a fascinating sport as a sky diver performing with the Sky Hawks in several air shows in conjunction with military service and held rank as a qualified parachutist. This love for sky diving is one of his most memorable accomplishments. After his decision to leave the military, Mr. Batt opened his own retail business and eventually sold that and accepted a position as commissionaire in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

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