The human cannonball only makes flight look easy

Published 10:58 pm Saturday, September 20, 2008

PUYALLUP — David Smith sits on the edge of his cannon as it slowly rises 50 degrees into the sky. He waves at his audience and lowers himself into the cannon’s muzzle.

After a five-second countdown, Smith shoots through the air, landing in a graceful somersault on a net 150 feet away. The crowd cheers. Smith gives a thumbs-up and hops back to solid ground.

He makes it look easy. But Smith says if he didn’t know what he was doing, this job would kill him.

In Smith’s 12 years as a human cannonball, he’s launched himself from a cannon more than 5,000 times. He’s taken his act all over the world, from South Africa to the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

But this year marks his first visit to the Puyallup Fair, where he’s performing cannon shots twice daily at 3 and 6 p.m.

Smith didn’t stumble onto his career by accident. His father before him was a cannonball, and the younger Smith picked it up when his dad needed a substitute.

Smith was 19 at the time, and a four-sport athlete. Still, those first shots left him hurting.

“It was terribly painful,” said Smith, 31. “You really have to learn how to fly.”

A few days before the fair’s opening day, Smith spoke to The News Tribune about his job, his family and his life in the comfort of his RV parked outside the fairgrounds.

His 9-year-old daughter, Alexa, scribbled away on homework at the kitchen table while he sat cross-legged on the floor.

He said he doesn’t view his job as safe by any means, but that doesn’t stop him from performing 350 to 450 times a year.

“There’s plenty of times when I get in that cannon when I ask for a little help from upstairs,” Smith said. “It’s a very nerve-wracking job.”

He’s had close calls before, when the wind or other factors have caused him to nearly miss his net. Typically, he ascends 75 or 80 feet into the air and travels about 150 feet.

The trick, he said, is in the positioning.

“I have to hold it in a position where it shoots me straight and I’m not spinning in the air,” he said. “Any small mistake in there can hurt you very badly. So I just don’t make those mistakes.”

He wouldn’t reveal much about how the inner workings of his cannon, which he and his father designed together. He said there’s a person in a small control room at the cannon’s base who pushes the launch button.

Normally, that person is Smith’s wife, Audrey Smith.

The couple often travel together and bring all of their children on tour, including 2-year-old twins Maverick and Mackenzie, and 4-year-old Chloe.

But Audrey Smith said she didn’t want to uproot her children for this tour, which will last only about a month. The family’s permanent home is in Port Charlotte, Fla.

“Usually we travel together and I’m his cannon shooter,” Audrey Smith said. “This trip is just too short.”

As a rule, participating in her husband’s act helps alleviate some of her fears for his safety, she said.

“Every day, I worry,” she said. “It’s a lot worse when someone else shoots him. But you are not safer driving your car to work than he is getting shot out of a cannon. I try to put that in perspective to make myself feel better.”

When David isn’t shooting through the air, he spends his time calculating the proper angle and amount of force for his next shot. Other times, he focuses on his family.

He made sure to bring Alexa along this time so she could see where he grew up in Salem, Ore., he said. The two of them will stop in Salem on their way to an appearance at San Diego’s Charger Stadium.

He said he’s not sure how long he’ll continue working as a human cannonball, but he feels compelled to continue his family’s performance tradition. When he can no longer do it himself, he’ll teach others, he said.

But that day is still a long way away.

“I’m still getting better at it,” he said. “There are a lot of things I feel I haven’t accomplished yet. I’d like to keep it alive long enough to pass it on.”