Jumping out of a perfectly good airplane is pretty damn risky. I am not terrified of heights, but I’m not comfortable around them either, despite 37 years and 9000+ hours of flying. Getting my five freefall parachute jumps was probably the riskiest physical thing I’ve ever done.
It seemed pretty natural that if you went to the Air Force Academy, you should do some aviation related things. I soared (all the way to my solo), and when the opportunity came to participate in the AM-490 free-fall parachute jump program, I signed up.
I think I would have liked to do it earlier, but you had to have REALLY good grades as a freshman to get into the program and then do well enough to be selected to continue on as a member of the Jump team. I did not. I struggled that first year, as college level classes and the Academy schedule was a lot harder than I had experienced in High School. I held my own, but I definitely didn’t do anything outstanding.
However, by the time my Junior year came around, I was in my Major (International Affairs), and was pretty comfortable both with academics as a whole, and the Academy in general. By then I was regularly making the Deans list.
Training for the program was down at the Academy airfield, since named Davis Field. We’d bus down there on afternoons and weekends, meet up with the parachute instructor cadre, who were all enlisted members who had hundreds, if not thousands, of jumps under their belts.
These guys showed us how to pack chutes (not that we ever would do that, but it was enlightening, and took a lot of fear away to see how things were packed and would open on the pull of a ripcord); how to put them on, cinch all the right cinchers. (If your voice didn’t change an octave, you didn’t do it right)… how to walk around with an awkward load on your back, but always careful not to snag it on something and accidentally open it before you were ready, etc.
Then we would practice standing and jumping out of a aircraft mock-up. We probably spent the most time of all doing that. Standing the door, getting hit on the butt, jumping out into a gravel pit, and starting to count. over and over and over and over again, and repeat. Until your hands and knees and shins were bruised and sore.
Then there was the practices counting: out the door, screaming “ONE, one thousand! TWO one thousand! THREE one thousand.!..” all the way to SEVEN one thousand, then it was “LOOK one thousand! (put your hand on your rip cord, look it to make sure you had the right one); PULL one thousand! (Pull your ripcord and pray!) ARCH one thousand! (arch your body hard so you were falling stable and the wind picked up the pilot chute you’ve just released, grabs it and pulls the rest of the chute out of the sack on your back.)
After that thtere was nothing to do but wait for that glorious opening shock that just stopped you in mid-air, knocking the wind out of you, and surrounding you with silence.
Of course you didn’t get that experience jumping into the gravel pit. That came on the first actual jump.
Before that was practice landings. Learning to jump from a 3-4 foot high platform, landing on the balls of your feet and then crumpling to the ground: calf-thigh-hip-shoulders. That was the approved landing method. The other method, and the one that everyone did at least once in our real jumps, but we tried to avoid at all costs, was the heels-butt-head landing. Thank god we had helmets.
Finally, it was time for the first jump. Up in the airplane. Circling higher and higher, probably up to about 4,000 feet above the field. Then the jump master would toss out a streamer to see how the wind was blowing, and after checking, advise the pilot where to head so that when we jumped we had a better than even chance to land somewhere close to the landing zone.
Then it was, “Stand up!” “Move to the door!” “Stand by!” All of a sudden someone (the Jumpmaster) slaps you on the ass, and yells “Go!”
That’s when all those hundreds of practice jumps in to the gravel came back into play….
Because when I was standing in the open door on my first jump, looking down and the ground far below, there was no way I was going to jump. No way in hell. But when he slapped me in the ass, the first reaction I had was to… jump.
And suddenly it was noisy and I was falling spread eagle and I could hear myself screaming my count. “…FIVE one thousand! SIX one thousand! SEVEN one thousand, then “LOOK one thousand! PULL one thousand!
I think I would have liked to do it earlier, but you had to have REALLY good grades as a freshman to get into the program and then do well enough to be selected to continue on as a member of the Jump team. I did not. I struggled that first year, as college level classes and the Academy schedule was a lot harder than I had experienced in High School. I held my own, but I definitely didn’t do anything outstanding.
However, by the time my Junior year came around, I was in my Major (International Affairs), and was pretty comfortable both with academics as a whole, and the Academy in general. By then I was regularly making the Deans list.
Training for the program was down at the Academy airfield, since named Davis Field. We’d bus down there on afternoons and weekends, meet up with the parachute instructor cadre, who were all enlisted members who had hundreds, if not thousands, of jumps under their belts.
These guys showed us how to pack chutes (not that we ever would do that, but it was enlightening, and took a lot of fear away to see how things were packed and would open on the pull of a ripcord); how to put them on, cinch all the right cinchers. (If your voice didn’t change an octave, you didn’t do it right)… how to walk around with an awkward load on your back, but always careful not to snag it on something and accidentally open it before you were ready, etc.
Then we would practice standing and jumping out of a aircraft mock-up. We probably spent the most time of all doing that. Standing the door, getting hit on the butt, jumping out into a gravel pit, and starting to count. over and over and over and over again, and repeat. Until your hands and knees and shins were bruised and sore.
Then there was the practices counting: out the door, screaming “ONE, one thousand! TWO one thousand! THREE one thousand.!..” all the way to SEVEN one thousand, then it was “LOOK one thousand! (put your hand on your rip cord, look it to make sure you had the right one); PULL one thousand! (Pull your ripcord and pray!) ARCH one thousand! (arch your body hard so you were falling stable and the wind picked up the pilot chute you’ve just released, grabs it and pulls the rest of the chute out of the sack on your back.)
After that thtere was nothing to do but wait for that glorious opening shock that just stopped you in mid-air, knocking the wind out of you, and surrounding you with silence.
Of course you didn’t get that experience jumping into the gravel pit. That came on the first actual jump.
Before that was practice landings. Learning to jump from a 3-4 foot high platform, landing on the balls of your feet and then crumpling to the ground: calf-thigh-hip-shoulders. That was the approved landing method. The other method, and the one that everyone did at least once in our real jumps, but we tried to avoid at all costs, was the heels-butt-head landing. Thank god we had helmets.
Finally, it was time for the first jump. Up in the airplane. Circling higher and higher, probably up to about 4,000 feet above the field. Then the jump master would toss out a streamer to see how the wind was blowing, and after checking, advise the pilot where to head so that when we jumped we had a better than even chance to land somewhere close to the landing zone.
Then it was, “Stand up!” “Move to the door!” “Stand by!” All of a sudden someone (the Jumpmaster) slaps you on the ass, and yells “Go!”
That’s when all those hundreds of practice jumps in to the gravel came back into play….
Because when I was standing in the open door on my first jump, looking down and the ground far below, there was no way I was going to jump. No way in hell. But when he slapped me in the ass, the first reaction I had was to… jump.
And suddenly it was noisy and I was falling spread eagle and I could hear myself screaming my count. “…FIVE one thousand! SIX one thousand! SEVEN one thousand, then “LOOK one thousand! PULL one thousand!
Then suddenly it was completely dead silence. I was just hanging there in space, floating with the wind….
Until a voice from a Megaphone came at me from the surface, “BRANBY!”
Oh, right. Look up, check the canopy. Find the 4-line static lines, steer the parachute around until I’m facing into the wind, look at the horizon, put my feet together, look at the horizon (DO NOT look at the ground rushing up to meet you). Get ready for touchdown and DO your parachute landing fall.
I did five jumps. The last one, I had a pilot chute hesitation; I had arched so hard that I created a bubble on my back and the pilot chute just sat there banging against my helmet. After about 3-4 knocks and no opening, I figured out what was going on, and I did my emergency body procedure: snapped my body into a ball, and the wind took that parachute right off my back almost. It was glorious feeling when it opened.
When I landed, the Instructor came over and pounded me on the back, congratulating of doing everything right.
I ended up as a Distinguished Graduate of the class, and was offered an extra jump. I thought about it a few minutes but in the end I figured if it was only one extra, that was just tempting fate. Might as well quit while I was ahead. I had the jump badge and the DG. I was good.
Until a voice from a Megaphone came at me from the surface, “BRANBY!”
Oh, right. Look up, check the canopy. Find the 4-line static lines, steer the parachute around until I’m facing into the wind, look at the horizon, put my feet together, look at the horizon (DO NOT look at the ground rushing up to meet you). Get ready for touchdown and DO your parachute landing fall.
I did five jumps. The last one, I had a pilot chute hesitation; I had arched so hard that I created a bubble on my back and the pilot chute just sat there banging against my helmet. After about 3-4 knocks and no opening, I figured out what was going on, and I did my emergency body procedure: snapped my body into a ball, and the wind took that parachute right off my back almost. It was glorious feeling when it opened.
When I landed, the Instructor came over and pounded me on the back, congratulating of doing everything right.
I ended up as a Distinguished Graduate of the class, and was offered an extra jump. I thought about it a few minutes but in the end I figured if it was only one extra, that was just tempting fate. Might as well quit while I was ahead. I had the jump badge and the DG. I was good.
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