Air-Borne

[White Oak]

Under this balloon is a basket large enough to hold 5 men,4 jumpers and a Jumpmaster.Everybody gets on,Everybody hooks up and a steel cable unwinds to about 900 feet.Unlike jumping from an Aircraft, it is completely quiet up there,so quiet you can hear your knees knock.Jumpmaster puts you in gate and when you are ready just step out and steer away from cable.When you land just turn in deployed chute,have the ground jumpmaster tell you what you did or didn't do right and get another chute and get back in line.To receive British wings you have to make 7 jumps.Our entire Company received British wings and later a company of British troopers came over to Germany to our unit and made jumps with us from a C-130.

[exlrrp]

yeah, what Tom said goes for me too as far as the school went.
I might point out that watching the EXTENSIVE ration of shit that was given to quitters was enough to keep me going, it was considerable. They harassed those poor fckers to death. I just never pictured me quitting--I always knew I was tougher than they could break down, I guess.
My first 5 jumps were from the Flying Boxcar, the only place I jumped it. I later jumped from C141s,C130s, C47s,Caribou, Mohawks, Otters and Hueys.

This picture I'm posting is from the St Mere Eglise Museum, they hve a C47 and a Waco glider there in the building.
This is the C47, the plane they jumped there on D Day.
Look at the jump door and where the wing is. Going out the door the wing looked like it was in yr left ear, I always crouched.
This is one of the most classic airplanes evr made, it helped win the war more thn any bomber or fighter
I think it would be a gas to static line this plane on D`Day 2004.
Wonder if anyone else is doing it
Steve--want to go jump on D`Day 2004 in Normandy with me and maybe Tommy? (and anyone else who wants to go)

James

[White Oak]

In the background is the truck that the balloon is attached to,the big spool with the cable is off to the right.If I remember correctly the cable operator sat in the box behind my left shoulder.It only took one day to for all of us to complete(about 120 men).

[exlrrp]

Looks like a fun day--the best day I had in the army was 3 jumps from a Huey in one day which would have been sorta like that but noisier, I guess--just roll right off from a sitting position.
here's an Airborne Trivia question for you-who holds the record for Most Jumps from Flaming Balloons? (American Army)

Happy Thanksgiving, all
James

[frisco-kid]

That balloon jumping sounds like it would have been ALOT of fun! Great pictures.

Danny, check your PMs.

[PHO127]

Much like the others, Got to go to Jumpmaster School at 8th ID in Maintz, Germany. The 8th had a basic jump school there also. on one of the mass tacticals we were flying out of Sembach and jumping on a DZ called Dermstein. Dermstein DZ was a long valley with grape vineyards on the hill sides. When making the final approach and comming in over the village the jump was greenlighted about a mile too soon. We jumped into the grape vinyards. You couldn't have drivin a 20 penny nail up my ass with a 10 pound sledge hammer. It was winter and you were not able to see the thousands of wooden stakes sticking up from the ground untill about 500 feet up, then it became apparent we were in a lot of trouble. They say you can not slip a T10 and they are correct. I had pulled down the risers and was grabbing handfulls of line to try and slip the chute, when I looked up at the chute it was almost sideways and I let go of all the line. As I recall, 28 of us hit in the vineyards and not one person got a scratch. One guy landed on top of a VW van and broke his leg when he fell off the Van.

[frisco-kid]

Great story. For sure, a real butt-tightener! Amazing no one was hurt.

What was the Jumpmaster School like? What were the requirements to get into it, etc.? Did you have to be at least a Senior Parachutist? How long was the school?

[PHO127]

As I recall it was 10 days, I do not think you had to be a senior parachutest but you had to have Jumpmaster school to get your master blaster wings. Don't know if that is still a requirement or not. The main things were how to check each jumpers gear for correctness. Check the reserve make sure the safety pin is pulled and chute zipped back up, harness and quick release and safety pin. The safety pins on the reserve and harness quick release are the most overlooked. Control the movement and exit from the aircraft. MOST important is the safety of the jump.

[82Rigger]

First, a few things you need to know about riggers:

1. All Army riggers must be airborne qualified. Paratroopers do not want people packing their chutes who are not paratroopers.

2. Each rigger must take an oath and sign a document that he will, on request, jump with any personnel parachute that he has signed off as being properly packed.

3. Riggers wear a red baseball cap with rigger wings on the front.
This is so that they may be easily located on the airstrip or the DZ.

4. Every parachute, whether a personnel chute or a cargo chute, has a log book attached to it. It stays with the chute for the life of the chute. Each time the chute is packed the rigger must sign and date the log book.

WHAT RIGGERS DO

Riggers have three general areas of endeavor:

1. Packing parachutes

2. Rigging cargo for air delivery

3. Repairing and maintaining chutes and airdrop equipment


PACKING PARACHUTES

We packed the T-10 and T-10 reserve troop chutes, the G12 and G11A cargo chutes, the extraction chutes (ribbon chutes) that pull the load from the aircraft, the B12 emergency chute that AF personnel wear when flying. During Vietnam we also packed the Martin-Baker ejection chute for the F4 Phantom and the Republic ejection chute for the F105 Thunderchief.
The 100 foot diameter G11A cargo chute is so huge that it is packed on a hangar floor using stand-up floor fans to help billow the chute for folding. It weighs 250 lbs packed. It takes six of them to air-drop a road grader.We could also air-drop a Bailey bridge.
A skilled and experienced rigger can pack a T-10 troop chute in about 12 minutes. The quota at Bragg was 40 per day.


AIR DELIVERY

Cargo can be dropped in individual containers with individual chutes. These are simply pushed out the door. Cargo is also rigged on palletts that fit into rails on the floor of the aircraft, fitted with cargo chutes, and extracted out of the aircraft with ribbon chutes (extraction chutes).


REPAIR AND MAINTENANCE

Repair of chutes and equipment is done with sewing machines.
Riggers use seven different kinds of sewing machines. The light duty machine is similar to a household machine and is used to repair canopies. The largest is a stand-up heavy duty machine of 3/4 horsepower. It has a huge needle and will sew stitches in an inch thickness of webbing. Also had a zig-zag machine to sew the suspension lines to the canopy.


The most familiar thing that paratroopers know riggers for, is when the troopers get their pre-jump rigger check. The trooper stands in front of the rigger with hands on helmet and the rigger checks all chutes and equipment, front and back, for the jump.
We check to make sure all lines and webbing is routed properly, especially the static line, and that all safety pins are in place, that no webbing has twists, that snap hooks are fully snapped, etc.

Hope ya'll find this info of interest.

Airborne! Steve / 82Rigger

[PHO127]

To jump school at Ft Benning, it had been tradition that if your father was airborne he could make the 5th (graduation) jump with you. About 5 of us showed up 2 days early because we had to go to a refresher ground course. One guy took 30 days off and drove from Alaska where he worked on offshore oil rigs. When we got there we were told that the Army had stopped the program because a father got hurt on one of the jumps and had filed a law suit against the Army. We sure would have liked to have gotten our hands on that guy. My sons first sergeant in jump school served with me in the SF.