Air-Borne

[BLUEHAWK]

Pho, and folks

1. When you are coming/floating down... how fast are you likely to be travelling, and given winds speeds and changes, to what extent is it at all possible to alter your rate of descent and direction, so as to avoid stakes sticking up from the earth etc.?

2. Have any of the newer chutes increased or decreased the likelihood of your butt hole slamming shut upon noticing stakes sticking up from the earth right where your rear-end is about to park itself?

[frisco-kid]

A strack looking trooper and a, rightfully so, proud looking dad. Where is he now? Is he the son that made the commemorative jump in Sicily? I'da loved to have made that one.

[frisco-kid]

When giving some of the specs on the T-10, Steve said the rate of descent was around 17'/sec, but I seem to remember being told that it was more like 23'/sec. Could be wrong. I'm old ya know , and Steve being a rigger, would probably remember better than me. The T-10 wasn't very steerable, but it wasn't absolutely impossible. Just seemed like it.

I don't know what they're using now for mass jumps. I assume the MC series [very steerable] or a more steerable T-10. Maybe Natalie can answer this, or Sid with his son being a paratrooper.

[phuloi]

Well done,Natalie.You are now among an elite few,some of whom I`m proud to call friends!

Tom:Was reading some history last night on my old unit and Operation Junction City.Did you know that in the original battle plan that elements of 1/101 were to jump,as well as the 173rd?

[1CAVCCO15MED]

Good looking kid, Sid

May God keep him safe while he kicks major ass.

[82Rigger]

In my chute data earlier in this thread, I gave the rate of descent as 17 feet per second. The rate of descent is affected by

1) the weight suspended beneath the chute,

2) air temperature and density, and

3) the presence or absense of thermal air, updrafts, etc.

I would imagine the 17 fps is based on an AVERAGE weight trooper with an AVERAGE equipment load, whatever the hell that is.

A paratrooper jumping with a combat load, or a trooper being dropped on an extended mission (like LRRPs or Special Forces) could be exiting the aircraft with as much as 100 pounds or more of equipment NOT COUNTING THE CHUTE. That would affect the descent rate greatly.
Troopers just making a pay jump (to keep the jump pay coming - at least one jump every three months - might be jumping with no equipment - just chutes. We called that a "Hollywood jump". Rate of descent would be minimal.

Affecting the descent rate even more than weight was any kind of upward moving air - thermals, updrafts, etc. They are always present, even on cold days. A stick of troopers seldom hit the ground in the same order that they left the aircraft.

In jump school on one of my jumps we had one trooper who got caught in a thermal. At first he had a normal rate of descent, but he started "slowing down" and at about 800 feet he was basically motionless - just hanging there up in the air. The rest of us were already on the ground and picking up our chutes. That was fairly rare, and everybody, even the instructors, were getting a charge out of it. They just let him "hang out" up there until it was almost time to get on the busses to go. Then they ordered him to slip (steer) in any direction and of course that moved him out of the thermal and he came on down.

A FEW COMMENTS ON STEERABILITY

Frisco summed it up nicely: not very steerable but not impossible.
Look at it this way...the T10 was not designed to be steered at all. But you COULD obtain some lateral movement by reaching up with both hands, either to the front, back, left, or right, grab a double handfull of suspension lines, and pull them down into your chest. This would tilt the canopy in that direction and let air escape from under the "high" side, which would provide a little lateral movement. You could, of course just keep pulling lines into your chest, like you were climbing a rope, but at some point the chute would be so tilted, it would collapse. Bad ju-ju.
How much steerage could you get? With one "arm's length" of lines pulled in, you might get 2 or 3 miles per hour lateral motion.
In short, if you need to avoid landing on something on the ground, you better start slipping as soon as you see it, and it better not be very large.

Wind speeds will DEFINITELY give you lateral movement, because that large chute has a large surface area and behaves like a sail.
In the continental US, a military jump could be officially cancelled if winds or gusts were 7 mph or more. That figure was usually "bent" a little, up to about 10 mph. Landing with a 7 to 10 mph ground speed is not good because, one, it increases the possibility of a landing injury, and, two, it will almost guarantee that you will be dragged across the ground by the chute after you land. ANY amount of being dragged is unpleasant to say the least and is usually injurious to some degree.

The current troop back chute is the T10D. As far as I know it is not designed to be steerable. The MC series of chutes is steerable and they are used on jumps which require precision landings.

Airborne! Steve / 82Rigger

[nataliemarie]

About a 20% drop out rate.. that seems about right. And yea... I'm proud

All my jumps at Airborne were done with a T10D, and I'll have to agree with you Rigger.. as far as I know, it's not meant to be maneuverable. A little slip here and there, to avoid running into your buddy, but thats about all its got..

We also learned how to jump the MC1-1D... maybe at my next duty station?

We jumped all our jumps outta a C-130... you know what I can't wait to jump from? A chinook.. I hear you can actually feel the "fall".. nice

Oh, and about the PT test before jump school. Yea, all of us that raised our hands wanting to volunteer went through sort of a "selection" process: PT test scores, our class standing at AIT, and of course had to pass the airborne physical, which for me went something like this:

"You think you can do it?"
"Yes"
"Alright.. good luck, airborne!"

Respectfully,
PFC Natalie Hughes

[82Rigger]

...yeah, you want to jump the Chinooks if you get the chance.
The downwash of the rotor blades slows your chute deployment noticeably. It's not "real quick" like it is from the planes.
It's cool! Just hook up to the cable and shuffle to the tailgate. Take a BIG step off the tailgate (to make sure your packed chute clears the edge of the tailgate). All else is the same...elbows tucked, etc.
Jumping the "Huey" is fun too. Don't know if those are still in service.

I (and most of the other airborne brothers in this forum) went through jump school in the 60's and got our jump wings from the C119 "Flying Boxcar".
I didnt get any 130 and 141 jumps until I got up to the Rigger School at Ft. Lee.

Airborne! Steve / 82Rigger

[BLUEHAWK]

Folks -
Thanks for the info, sorry I wasn't in on the beginning of it to get some answer to my thought... I just find you bunch fascinating in what your job was... tyo jump OUT of an airplane at ANY time so ordered... whew, that takes some faith in Uncle Sam's equipment.

I conclude from all thats been said here that basically, there could very well be circumstances in which there just would not be any way to avoid something nasty and stationery coming up to meet a person from the ground... I remember seeing that TV shot a few years back of a guy who'd bailed out of an air balloon into the New Mexico desert, and got dragged right into (fer chrissake) a good size cholla cactus, one of the meanest forms of flora Lord God hath ever made.

And, the C119, another amazing looking aircraft... is there much or any difference/or preference between jumping out the TAIL of an aircraft (e.g. C119 or C123 or C130) vs out the SIDE doors (C47 etc.)???

[PHO127]

Frisco, Yepper, he is the one, also made 50th anniversary jump at Normandy. He also made a tail drag exit in Rawanda Africa to secure the Airport for medical troops in 93. Has been Attached to the Secret Service for EOD security detail for President and went with Madeline Albrite (sp)? when she was Secretary of State to North Korea. Currently he is with a detachment in Bosnia and they are locating and blowing up weapons and explosives caches in the Balkan Mountains. I posted a pic he sent me a couple of weeks ago up in the general section I,ll put it up here. That is not him in pic he took the pic.

Natalie, I have jumped just about everything that will haul you up in the air except a balloon and I think Danny (White Oak) has jumped them. Your first helicopter jump is a heart stopper, When you exit a fixed wing you get blown back by the prop blast and you chut opens faster. A 130 gives you about a 5 max, a 141 gives you a 4, even the slowest fixed wing wil give you a 6 or 7. A rotary just lets you fall and, if you go out a chinook you go forward off the tail ramp and it is not so bad but if you go off a slick you fall off the skids and it is a drop for a count of 9.9. Takes some getting used to.

Some of the new steerables get a 3:1 lateral to drop movement. Meaning you can do an exit at 20,000 feet and slide 60,000 feet. that is just under 12 miles for a covert entry.