Knights’ Fall Caps Day of Thrills

In the large crowd gathered at the airport Sunday, heads craned, necks twisted, sweat poured and 9-year-old Chrissie Cochran couldn’t help from covering her eyes with her small hands. “I’d never, ever, ever jump out of a plane like that,” she said.

About 5,000 feet above Chrissie were 10 men--part of the Golden Knights, an elite Army parachute team performing at the Van Nuys Airport Aviation Expo ‘99--who had just popped out of their plane and were moving swiftly through the sky in choreographed patterns, their yellow and black chutes not yet deployed.

“It must feel like you’re a rock getting thrown from a tall building,” she gasped.

On the expo’s second and final day, Chrissie was one of about 100,000 people who combed the airport grounds, enduring bright sun and sweltering heat in search of a vicarious thrill.

They came not only to see the parachute team but to check out dozens of aircraft. There was everything from supercharged stunt planes to F-14 jets, as well as a hang glider sailing above the crowds while attached by wire to a pickup truck racing up and down the runway.

For most spectators the day seemed filled with continuous awe. After watching pilots push their planes into the sky, then stall, then fall backward, then twist and twirl and hurtle toward pavement before leveling off at the last minute, Karen Ledbetter, 43, summed up what most in the audience appeared to be feeling. “My heart is in my throat,” she said. “What the pilots do, it’s just crazy.”

For her part Chrissie said she enjoyed the acrobatics well enough, but for her the highlight of the day was watching the Golden Knights fly through the sky.

“I wonder how you become one of those guys?” she asked her best friend, 9-year-old Sara Knight.

The day was split into two shows, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. The Golden Knights, who live and train at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and spend most of their year performing at air shows and special events, started off each session.

For the unit’s afternoon demonstration, a 10-member crew of Golden Knights took to the air in their twin-engine plane and slowly circled the Valley for about 30 minutes, making lazy, banking turns over Cal State Northridge, Studio City and Van Nuys.

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The crew, clad in black jumpsuits and soft leather helmets that gave them the look of Knute Rockne-era football players, confidently strode up and down the cabin before returning to the airport the hard way. They often stood, unfazed, next to two large open doors from which they would soon jump.

As they prepared to leap, the men lined up in pairs, using hand signals to communicate because the rush of wind and the plodding noise of engines gave the cabin an earsplitting roar.

Finally, each man took a backward step out of the plane while smartly saluting and was whisked off into the sky with the ferocity of a paper clip sucked into a vacuum cleaner.

It feels like driving in a speeding car with your head hanging out the window, remarked Staff Sgt. Dave Herwig after his jump.

Before the parachute opens, he explained, you’re flying, using your arms and legs to turn, arching yourself to speed up and slow down. “It’s the most exhilarating feeling in the world,” Herwig said, smiling. “A freedom that’s good beyond words.”