Veteran skydiver Craig Saucier and fellow jumper PJ Tavernit had the perfect scheme to announce the gender of their mutual friend's expected baby: Why not jump from a plane at the baby's gender reveal party with either pink or blue smoke trailing from their bodies, designating the new child's sex? It was a clever and ambitious reveal, but let's just say that Craig's plan didn't quite work out as planned, forcing the skydivers into some aerial improv.

The diving duo was slated to leap from the large cargo opening of a Beechcraft Bonanza. The Bo' can make a good jump platform because it has a large cabin that seats six and, unlike most aircraft, is approved to fly even with the rear cargo doors removed. This bird seemed ideal for the two jumpers to pull off their stunt. That, is until mechanical issues with the Beechcraft started popping up, forcing them to look elsewhere.

Unwilling to just give up on the stunt, the pair devised a plan B. But that meant coming up with a new plane to jump from, and their choices turned out to be a Piper Cub from the 1940's and a T-6 warbird trainer of similar vintage.

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Saucier was skeptical he could make the jump from a 65-year-old World War II trainer, and it's easy to see why. He'd have to leap from the canopy rather than a back cargo door. This meant that the more typical approach of jumping out of a plane—shimmying out on the wing and sliding under the tail—was impossible. That left him with an up-and-over exit as the safest escape route.

To complicate matters, the beefy North American T-6G, built in 1950 with a 600-hp Pratt & Whitney Wasp radial engine, cannot safely slow down far enough to match the typical exit airspeed. This would add even more degree of difficulty to the jump. The divers would need to climb out and get into position without being blown free of the aircraft prematurely—or worse, being blown directly into the tail.

Once he devised the perfect plan, Craig worked closely with pilot and owner Sonny Schilleci. Schilleci is no stranger when it comes to flying Warbirds. On his 16th birthday he became the youngest person to ever solo a T-28 Trojan. He is currently on the board of directors for Blackhawk Flight Foundation , an organization dedicated to providing scholarships and promoting aviation careers for children of fallen law enforcement and military personnel. In addition to the T-6 he also owns and flies an L-39 Albatross jet trainer like those flown by the Breitling Jet Team .

Craig and Sonny first practiced on the ground, experimenting with different positions to stand in before exiting. Next, they performed several different variations of the zero-g maneuver in the air with the canopy closed until they found the perfect amount of throw and timing. The zero-g maneuver they did in the T-6 is almost identical to what is performed on the vomit comet where astronauts train for space and even musicians make music videos . The airplane is pitched up and then the nose is pushed over until the occupants experience virtual weightlessness. This worked perfectly for Craig as he timed his release in perfect sync with the maneuver and floated gracefully up and away from the classic warbird trainer.

The expectant family and their friends were pretty excited to see blue smoke flowing away from the divers as they fell, but probably not as excited as Saucier was to climb out of the top of a T-6 and reach for the skies. He told me that in the 16 years he's been skydiving, he's jumped from ultralights, gyrocopters, biplanes, and even powered parachutes, but this was by far the coolest exit he's ever made from any aircraft.

As far as any future attempts to abandon other perfectly good aircraft, he said "I don't have any plans at the moment but I always have my eyes and ears open for the next opportunity." Well, I sure look forward to whatever crazy shenanigans might come his way.

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