CANADIAN SKYDIVER BILL COLE –
MAN OR MONSTER?
By Rob ‘Skypuppy’ Price
I
have often thought that I started jumping ten or twenty years too late –
that parachuting from the early 1900’s to the late seventies held much
more romance and adventure than during the eighties and nineties.
This can be seen from demonstration jumps off bridges and towers
in the early part of the twentieth century, to the daring freefall
exploits of people like Leo Valentin, Clem Sohn, and even Tiny Broadwick
at a time when most people believed you couldn’t breathe in freefall.
Many of these barnstormers wore only one parachute and no
altimeter, eyeballing their descents and opening very low to the ground.
Some died. Yet
without their pioneering of the sport parachuting as a recreation may
have never gotten off the ground.
These early days required a sense of adventure, a quest for advancing
knowledge and design, and nerves of steel – yet many skydivers who
exhibit such attributes today are frowned upon.
Such a man was Canadian skydiver Bill Cole.
When I was a beginning jumper Cole’s name was invoked by many in
Canada as some sort of bogeyman – a disgrace to the sport and a cause of
concern for all right-minded sport parachutists (as if whuffos ever saw
any parachutist as ‘right-minded’!) Cole was looked down upon because he
claimed to have done a chuteless jump (2 in fact); because he made a
living out of parachuting and stunts; and because it was alleged he took
young unqualified jumpers and groomed them for his team when no one else
would jump with him.
Although he had been in the sport for years, filming commercials and
television projects, and set day and night Canadian high altitude
records, Cole is the only person I’m aware of who has been kicked out of
the Canadian Sport Parachute Association (CSPA) for life! – TWICE!
Bill is a qualified balloon and fixed wing pilot, although he will tell
you on questioning that both licenses were received through ‘nefarious’
means. As I listened to some
of his stories it occurred to me that this was a piece of parachuting
history in a nutshell.
When I arrived at SWOOP Bill was waiting for me.
On his left taillight was taped ‘NO FEAR?’ The right taillight
read ‘FEAR GOD!’ Bill’s a
large, personable man of 68.
He hasn’t jumped in ten or eleven years now, but he expressed his wish
to do a few for old times sake.
He still has an old Paracloud in a sport backpack and a Navy
Conical reserve in a front-mounted container at home.
No one would claim he lacks self-confidence, but I was amazed at
his willingness to talk about the failures as well as the successes…
The Beginning
Cole’s jumping career began at age 29 on Aug. 5, 1962 in Baldwin,
Ontario. In October he did
his first freefall on his 11th jump, followed by his first
night jump on his 15th and first camera jump on his 19th.
By 1963, with 38 jumps, Bill began a career of airshow
performances and tv filmwork.
The Highs
1969 was a banner year for Bill.
By now Cole had almost 400 jumps and successful film campaigns
for Coke, O’Keefe Black Jack Ale, Labatt’s beer, cigarette and underwear
commercials. Now Carling Red
Cap approached him about an ad campaign on skydiver ‘Bill Cole’.
The idea was for ‘Bill’ to be shown falling in an ejection seat,
saving himself, and then drinking a few Red Caps.
Since Bill was actually going to be filming, he had Larry
Costello, a member of the Canadian team, stand in for him.
The commercial was shot over 2 weekends in St. Thomas, Ontario
and Ortner Field, Ohio. On
the first day Bill shot close-ups of Larry – on the second day the fun
began.
On
May 23, 1969 Bill, Larry Costello and Murray Smith set an unofficial
Canadian high altitude record chasing Harry Cole (strapped into the
ejection seat) from a B26 bomber over St. Thomas at 21,500 AGL during
filming for the Red Cap commercial.
After Harry separated from the ejection seat, a parachute
deployed to lower it to the ground.
A couple of hours later they repeated the jump from 22,500 AGL
with Bill in the hot seat, effectively setting another Cdn. Record.
It was Bill’s 389th jump.
The funny thing about the ad campaign was that Bill didn’t drink,
and Carling later said they’d never have used him for the commercial if
they’d known that.
(It recently came out that in 1964 a group
including Dick Wilbur, Simon Wykeham-Martin, Paul Bouffard and Ray
Parker did a jump from 22,700’ in 1964.
Despite the fact that Dick Wilbur was suspended from CSPA at the
time, CSPA has decided to recognize this group altitude record. ‘A Piece
of Canadian History’, Canpara, December 2007/January 2008)
In
June of ’69 Cole and his group did 14 jumps at Whitefish Falls on
Manitoulin Island filming for the CBC production, ‘Adventures in Rainbow
Country’. On the last one
Bill was to carry a mannequin out the door and was supposed to hold on
to it through landing.
Because he was carrying the mannequin he was unable to wear a
front-mounted reserve and jumped without one.
On opening the risers caught the mannequin and Bill’s arm,
fracturing his wrist and causing him to lose his grip.
She went for a long lonely
freefall from 2000’, finally ending up decapitated in the cold dark
waters of Georgian Bay.
The Chuteless Jump
August ’69 marked the beginning of Bill’s troubles with CSPA.
He arranged with a promoter to do a jump without a parachute,
flying over to another jumper and snapping a reserve on to his harness.
Murray Smith was to film the jump and Larry Costello would hold
the reserve for Bill. Over
Aug. 18 and 19 Bill and Larry made 4 practice jumps over Parkman, Ohio.
Because of the weight differential, Bill made these practice
jumps without a reserve chute.
Because the jump would be illegal in the US, on Aug. 20th
Bill and Larry took off from Ohio in a Beech 18 and flew across Lake
Huron to Centralia, near Grand Bend, Ontario.
They exited at 13,200’, with Murray Smith filming.
Unfortunately, while on the practice jumps Bill had worn a
parachute which constricted his jumpsuit, for this one he wore the
harness under his jumpsuit with just the risers exiting slits on his
chest and running down his arms to the D-rings he would snap onto the
reserve. Because there was
no harness over his suit he began to have problems floating – he managed
to get down to Larry and deploy the reserve, opening at 3000’, but
Murray had sunk away and they had virtually no usable film after the
exit. It was Bill’s 436th
jump.
Life Goes On
As
soon as word got out that Bill had done his chuteless jump he was
condemned from all sides.
CSPA immediately suspended him for life.
However, according to the MOT in 1969 you didn’t need CSPA
membership to jump, and Bill slowed down not a whit.
On Sept. 20th he exited with oxygen from a Lockheed 18
Lear Star over Base Borden at 31,000’, setting a new Canadian high
altitude record with Murray Smith.
Bill’s airshow displays were now taking on aspects of a real
barn-storming act. At
Huronia Airport in 1970 Bill did 9 jumps for a Molson’s beer commercial.
The script called for 2 Tiger Moths to fly directly beneath Bill
as he descended under canopy, and the director wanted to do it in one
shot. This called for tight timing as the planes lined up behind jump
run and came in less than a minute later.
Bill did the first jump from 1200’, then raised the exit altitude
to 1400’ for the others. On
one jump he had to turn away from the target to avoid a Tiger Moth.
On
demonstration jumps Bill was often wearing batwings he’d started jumping
down in Florida. He was
often opening at 1000’, or even lower.
At the ’72 Barrie Winter Carnival, Bill jumped from 5000’ and
3500’ on the first day, opening at 1000’.
On the last day, exiting from 2000’ in a snowstorm, Bill opened
at 500’.
One of his favorite routines was from a Stampe biplane, piloted by his
friend, Doug Murray. As the
Stampe waited at the end of the runway, Bill would sneak out in a car
and climb into the front seat, scrunching down out of sight as the plane
took off. When it was their
turn to come on stage the airshow announcer would pretend they were a
civilian aircraft that had wandered in to the airshow space.
Doug would pretend to lose control, perform some aerobatics and
finally make 3 climbing inside loops.
At the top of the 3rd loop, usually around 1500-1800’,
Bill would drop out, opening between 500-1000’.
Since he no longer belonged to CSPA he was not concerned with
following their rules.
Chuteless – Again!
It
was in 1972 that Bill did his 2nd chuteless jump.
Wanting to make sure he got good footage he contacted Mike Swain,
a cameraman from Florida, to come up and film the jumps.
In July of ’72 Bill did 7 practice jumps in Grafton, Ohio, once
again without a reserve.
These were the days when about one in twenty jumps would result in a
malfunction! On July 20th,
over Wellington, Ohio, Mike filmed Bill receiving a reserve in freefall,
and managed to put together a short film without showing anyone’s face
but Cole’s (this jump was still strictly illegal!)
Cole opened by about 2000’, and this time he had everything he
wanted.
Official High Altitude Record
Since Bill was still suspended by CSPA, this jump didn’t affect his
status, and at the ’73 CSPA AGM Bill petitioned for and was granted a
reprieve in order to be able to jump with his son.
On April 7, 1973, now a member in good standing of CSPA, Bill set
a new official Canadian high altitude record of 36,916’ from a
C210 Turbo over Baldwin.
After landing he was picked up by John Smythe, then director of CSPA and
issued an official FAI certificate.
The Lows
Shortly after this Bill was paid 1500$ for an interview on CBC.
During the interview he was asked to comment on whether it could
be feasible to jump from the side of the Grand Canyon.
Bill answered that it could be done.
When CSPA heard his comments they were misconstrued and he was
once again suspended for life.
In
1975 CBC hired Bill to jump with an Imax camera for a film to be shown
at the Cinesphere at Ontario Place.
The camera weighed about 160lbs, and was to be housed in a sphere
with a stabilizing ring and 4 handles, 2 upper and 2 lower.
A round reserve was attached to the top which Bill was to deploy
before opening his own chute.
On the first jump with a simulated weight the sphere was not very
stable. When Bill finally
pulled the ripcord the pilot chute was just sitting above the housing in
a burble and he had to tip the sphere to finally get it to inflate.
He finally opened his own chute below 1000’.
Bill claims that he wanted to do another jump with the weights
but the director had them insert the real camera, at that time worth in
excess of 100,000$. Because
of the size of the sphere, Bill couldn’t see around it to the skydivers
performing for the camera, but he could see the smoke they were wearing
and knew they were in position.
When it came time to move from the lower grips to the higher
handles and deploy the round, Bill lost his grip.
He thought about chasing the thing, but was already too low.
The 100,000$ camera, one of two in Canada, bounced.
The Ontario government eventually sued Bill and the director for
the money, and Bill declared bankruptcy.
In
1978 Bill had been jumping at the Canadian International Air Show (CIAS)
for 7 years and was looking for a new gimmick to incorporate into the
show. He hit on the idea of
jumping a Paracommander with extra long risers.
The problem was the risers were so long that the parachute
started turning way before his body.
Since he didn’t realize the parachute was turning, Bill pulled
harder on the toggle, only to see when he looked up that the risers and
lines had twisted together and he couldn’t release the steering line.
He ended up landing hard on the roof of the Better Living
Building at the Exhibition grounds and being helped down by the Toronto
Fire Dept. This was the jump
that lost Bill the CIAS contract.
Although Bill continued to jump into the early 80’s probably the one
jump best remembered was a night high altitude record (from 30,571’)
with Rick Wall over Pearson International Airport on Aug 25, 1976, which
was well documented in the papers at the time.
It was jump 728.
In
the End
Although Bill’s career has been long and controversial, one thing can’t
be argued. It brought
parachuting in Canada into the limelight much more than it would have
been without him. Bill’s
Descenders Parateam jumped at the Canadian International Air Show in
Toronto from 1971 to 1978 (he also jumped there in ’65) and his
commercials aired on television and in print throughout Canada.
Cole made mistakes, and none would be quicker to admit it than
he, but parachuting would have been a less colorful place without Bill
Cole.
The author would like to thank Claude ‘Froggy’ Lalonde for his
assistance with this article, and Bill Cole for his memories, files and
logbooks. He would also like
to thank Mike Swain for the video ‘Bill Cole’s Chuteless Jump’ and his
book, ‘The Endless Fall’, available at
www.endlessfall.net
Pictures
Bill
Cole - Batwings – Bill shows off his new suit in 1968.
Bill
Cole -
Chuteless – Bill moves in to accept reserve from Kenny Wiecheck.
(From Mike Swain’s film)
Bill
Cole - Ontario Place – the Descenders Parateam over Toronto waterfront
during Canadian International Air Show. (Photo by Mike Swain?)
Bill
Cole
Official
Altitude
Record–
Official FAI certificate for Canadian Record.
