The skies over Sherkston filled with parachutes Tuesday during the sixth annual Sky Fest. Held to celebrate the first Canadian — Frank Ellis — to jump from a plane, which was done 3,000 metres above Crystal Beach 105 years ago, the event featured members of the Geronimo Skydiving Team and Round Canopy Parachuting Team USA land in the waters of Lake Erie and on Sherkston’s Wyldewood Beach. A member of the Round Canopy Parachuting Team jumps from a Skydive Burnaby plane at the sixth annual Sky Fest at Sherkston Tuesday.
The event was also held to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day and the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian Air Force. It also featured a military vehicle and weapon display by members of Royal Canadian Legion Branch 230, out of Ridgeway. A member of the Round Canopy Parachuting Team lands in Lake Erie during the sixth annual Sky Fest.
Round Canopy Parachuting Team USA members, all combat veterans, with one or two who have made combat jumps over Grenada and Panama, were to jump from the Canadian Heritage Warplane Museum’s C-47 Dakota, but mechanical issues kept it from participating. Instead, they jumped from Skydive Burnaby’s Cessna 182 and used static lines to open their round parachutes much like they would have from the C-47. A static line is a cord attached inside a plane and to a deployment bag on a parachutist.
When a person jumps from a plane, the line becomes taught and pulls a parachute out causing the wind to inflate the canopy. Mar.
