Ice Pilots NWT

Mikey talks to a 15-year-old aviation buff in England via Skype, who has discovered that Buffalo's DC3–WZS–flew on D-Day. This inspires Mikey to do something special for the 70th anniversary. He invites Cory to do a tandem parachute jump and finds out that Cory's grandfather was a paratrooper at the invasion of Normandy. Meanwhile, Mikey takes mercy on Prefkar, working the ramp in Hay River, and offers him a chance for some pilot training on the morning DC-3 freighter. But when the time comes, Prefkar learns that he's been bumped for pilot David Alexandre. It gets worse for Prefkar when he's given another chance and this time the fog rolls in. Prefkar might not stick it out at Buffalo. Mikey's D-Day plans get even bigger when he contacts the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry, who were part of the Allied airborne forces that dropped behind German lines in 1944. He pitches his plan—a reenactment jump from WZS, an actual D-Day plane. But there's a hitch: the plane needs to pass inspection, and Mikey needs to lose weight to make the cut for tandem jumping. Mikey tries everything he can think of—from juicing, working out with Dan at the gym and even sweating it out in spin class. Cory and Mikey go over what they need to refit DC-3 WZS for a static line jump. Cory is sent on a scavenger hunt for parts in Red Deer and finds a brand-new bracket from the 1940s—but they still need to find the missing rear bracket, and nobody even knows what it looks like.

Mikey shows a veteran Buffalo's DC-3, WZS, Buffalo's very own vintage plane from the Second World War. It is being fitted with a special ‘static' line, which paratroopers will clip onto for a D-Day reenactment jump. But army inspectors tell Mikey a modern military needs a modern line with a winch system in case they need to retrieve a "hung-up jumper". Cory and Mikey scramble to build the retrieval line before the inspector comes back to test it. But with their bumbling and fumbling, it doesn't look like they will make the cut. Meanwhile, Chris Staples and some of Buffalo's pilots head down to Fullerton, California, to Air Combat USA, where pilots get to experience aerial dogfights in real fighter planes. The pilots do yo-yos, spins and pull Gs to out-maneuver their opponent. First up in the dogfights are newly checked-out co-pilot Sam Storm versus longtime co-pilot David Alexandre. Sam wins the fight due to David's inability to hold down his breakfast. Next up is cocky co-pilot Chris Staples versus his C-46 captain Devan Brooks. But Devan's many years in DC-3s and C-46s have left him unprepared for the video game pace of dogfighting and he quickly loses 3-0. Finally, the two top guns return to the sky. Sam scores first, but Chris is not about to get beaten.

The Buffalo boys gather in Red Deer for Mikey's D-Day tribute jump. Joe and Sam scout out the designated military drop zone over Abraham Lake in the Rockies only to discover the canyon is too narrow for the DC-3. So Joe cancels the whole thing—it's too dangerous. Mikey uses Joe's own philosophy against him: at Buffalo, there's always a backup plan. Joe flies out to scout a new location for the drop on the lake but hits bad weather. As Joe is about to scrap the trip, twenty paratroopers from the Canadian and American armies arrive for the big jump and are ready to go. They board WZS and Joe takes off to a site he hasn't scouted, in weather that just keeps getting worse. As they near the drop point, he finally calls it—no jump tonight. They turn back, with all the troops still on board. Mikey's only hope is a narrow window first thing the next morning—but only if Joe gives the final okay.