I have gotten a sign!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Going face forward.

So you went into the ground facing the same direction that the wind was blowing you? That is, the wind was blowing you toward the North, and you were facing North?

Man, you are right. They should have cancelled that jump. I went to jump school in the summer and the winds might be more calm at Fort Benning in the summer.

Main thing is that there is nothing better than a LSU Airborne Fighting Tiger. I met a Colonel while I was at Fort Bragg who was not only a Special Forces hero, but he was also a former player for LSU Head Coach Charlie McClendon. It is fun to be an Airborne LSU Fighting Tiger.

The terrible thing for you, Crip, is that when a good guy like you gets hurt at jump school, you go home without earning your jump wings. That is like a getting hurt twice! To me, having earned the jump wings, I feel like we've left you behind because you got hurt thought no fault of your own. I feel terrible about it. You went through two weeks of jump school, and would be Airborne, but for bad luck. I hope you know that all of us Airborne types really sympathize with your situation. Please keep your spirits up, because we know that you have what it takes to be one of us.

Get that leg back to 100 percent no matter how much rehab hurts, Airborne buddy. You have a lotta guts, for sure.

:geaux:

:lsug:

 

Sport jumping? Never tried it.

I don't know enough about sport parachutes to compare them to military parachutes, but maybe somebody around here who is a HALO jumper can tell us. I saw those guys jump a lot, and they look like they use sport parachutes. HALO means high altitude, low opening. The idea is to sneak behind enemy lines by exiting the aircraft at an incredibly high altituded, free falling for awhile, then opening up the chute at about 1000 feet.

I've never done any sport jumping, so I don't know what they teach.

The military chutes are designed to get you on the ground quickly so that the bad guys have less of a chance to shoot at you. You aren't supposed to land on enemy troops, but it can happen by accident. The designs of the military chutes are decades old and I don't know which design features cause you to hit the ground hard. Maybe the contractor just sold Uncle Sam some parachute designs that suck, and convinced Uncle Sam that getting to the ground more quickly is a good thing! : ) Wow, imagine how fast you'd get to the ground with no chute at all! (don't laugh, I read where the dumb Soviets tried that during WWII from 300 ft. on a snowy hillside.)

When you jump with your equipment, you have everything strapped to you when you exit the aircraft, but you release it all about 300 feet from the ground. It is all tied to a 50 foot rope, so it dangles below you and hits the ground first, than you crash . . . er . . . I mean, softly land on the ground.

:geaux:

:lsug:

 

Great question. Sport jumpers jump with a square "trick" chute. No one in his right mind would pick a 30' round chute to a (usually 35') square. The square takes the form of a wing when filled and drops at a decent of as little as 1 mph when the pull-up cords are yanked. Those airborne guys hit the ground at 20-30 mph and pray they arent oscillating on contact. I work with the Rescue chutes in ejection seats and evacuation chutes. They just make sure the ground slows down enough; and you smack into it at speeds faster than 30mph. I haven't messed with any army chutes, but I've seen most all of them. Our special forces use Square chutes, they are actually very easy to pack and will usually work unless something is put in backwards or upside down. The rounds tend to streamer or line-over in winds or a bad exit from the plane. A line over occurs when a line goes over the canopy during deployment and burns a strip open in the chute. It looks like our friend here may have been a victim of all of the above.

 

The round one with the hole in the top.

The T-10 is the round canopy with a hole in the top.

The "dash 1" has holes in the rear of the canopy so that you get more of a forward drift, and it has a toggle device for each hand that allows you to steer yourself during descent so that you can face INTO the wind when you land.

:geaux:

:lsug:

 

Crip*TEAM KATT,

Thats one hell ova story.

Thank You for serving our country!

Geaux Tigers

 

Once again thanks, it is all interesting. My knowledge is as advanced as the old parachute toys I used to get. Jumping out of planes take guts . . . jumping out of a plane then landing to fight, now that is unreal. I always thought they landed with the equipment attached, so now it makes more sense to hear it is all connected to a line. I think my biggest fear would be that the chute wouldn't open. I'm sure it is rare, but it would certainly be in my mind the entire time.

Something else I thought of . . . do you guys ever jump into water? Is it easier? And what in the world do you do with the chute once you land. In films, it seems they cut the lines and leave them where they land.

 

I'm impressed. And SabanFan is not easily impressed.

 

Water jumps.

I had a chance to go on a training jump into water, but I turned it down.

I don't know how they did it, but I'm quite sure that they don't have to cut the lines.

The parachute harness comes off once you release the metal latches that fasten the harness together. When you land on the ground and the wind is strong, you need to get the harness off of you quickly before the wind catches your canopy and you get dragged across the prairie like a tumbleweed.

Man, this is fun!!

:geaux:

:lsug:

 

with the water landing you have to sit back in the harness and release the quick releases while you are coming down, also you have to jettison all your gear and then at the last second before hitting the water push yourself out of the harness and swim away so that you don't get caught when the canopy hits the water. As far as the chute once we land if its a training jump we have to pack it up in our jump bags, but if its combat, well thats just the cost of war.

The main difference from what we do and sport jumping is that in sport jumping you acuattly use a "sail" instead of a chute. Its more like a big wing like someone said earlier. That allows you to land at an angle with a running montion instead of hitting like a pile of shit with your legs underneath you.

I acuttally had a pretty bad tangle that I had to kick out of once my chute deployed, that was alittle breath taking.

Oh and I don't know if its been said but alot of people think that we hang up there and just float down, and I know that its been said that we land at about 20 to 30 mph but thats alittle hard to picture, so let me drop this on ya!

I jumped from 1200ft, after you jump out you count to 4 and then your chute deploys, it then takes 56 secs to hit the ground. SO think about that 1200ft in the air and it just takes 1 min. to fall.

BUT there is no greater rush in the whole world and if I get to finish and go on to Bragg or whereever they send me I can't wait to put in for HALO and pray that I get accepted.

 

Good Luck Crip.