Air-Borne
 

I would like to know what jump school was like, what the shoot weigh, reserve, what the strings were called, how long is it (shoot) how long was school, what is a rigger. I don't want to go to jump school but I want to feel I did.

Ron

If one of you airborne types...
 

...will answer Ron's questions about jump school, then I'll
jump in and help out with the 'chute specs and the Rigger question.

Airborne! Steve / 82Rigger

Rigger
 

I guess they don't want to, Thats ok.

Ron

Jump school
 

I went to jump school at Fort Benning in Oct 1968.I was assigned to the 43rd Company Student Brigade.Jump school is three weeks long and a very hard three weeks.It's been a long time but mostly I remember running everywhere and doing push-ups and push-ups and more push-ups.1st week is ground week,learning how to land,hanging in a harness to learn how to control the path to ground,laying on ground and having a large wind machine blow you across the ground to show you how to get out of chute after landing.2nd week is tower week,here you learn how to exit the aircraft properly and maintain a good body position from a 40 foot tower,also the 250 tower where you are taken up and dropped and practice landing.3rd week is jump week,2 jumps on monday,2 jumps on Tuesday and on Wedsday the last jump is a equipment jump(weapon,pack,etc)On Friday they pin the basic Parachute Wings on and you are officially a Paratrooper.My first 4 jumps was in a C-119 Aircraft and the last one was a C-130 Hercules.I didn't jump anymore until I came back from Vietnam and got sent to Germany to Bravo Company 1/509th Airborne Battalion.Here I jumped from UH1B Huey,C-141.My company went to England and went to British Jump school and got 7 jumps from a balloon and British wings.At 53 years of age now everyday my knees let me know that I was a paratrooper.Photo is in Company area at Fort Benning,I'm on the left sitting,can't remember the other guys names now.

Airborne over Germany
 

The 8th Infantry Division in Germany in 1972 had two Airborne Battalions(about 1200 men).If the Russia decided to take its 25 to 30 Infantry and Armored Divisions and roll across the border our job was to parachute into their path and become something like a speed bump while everybody else was getting ready to come and face them head-on.What a plan!anyway here is a photo of us,Bravo Company 1/509th,Devils in baggy pants!

Airborne
 

When you picked up your chutes at Fort Benning this sign was read by all,God bless all RIGGERS,Airborne.

JUMP SCHOOL
 

I went through Jump school at Ft. Benning in MAY66. I was in 42nd Company, 23rd class. Like Danny has already said, it was 3wks. long, consisting of Ground Week, Tower Week, and Jump Week.

Ground Week is alot of PT, getting yelled at, dropped for push ups for every little infraction [real or imagined] running EVERYWHERE, and in between they're teaching you stuff. One of the first things they start teaching you is how to do a PLF [Parachute Landing Fall]. In the next 3 weeks, it'll seem like you've done thousands of these. Do PT. You'll learn about the T-10 parachutes, run, how to get into the harness properly, do pushups, be suspended by the harness and taught how to work the risers to control the chute, get yelled at and do push ups. Did I say we ran EVERYWHERE :D ? Alot of people drop out the first week for various reasons. Some decide this isn't for them after all; some can't hang with the PT; some can't take the harrassment.

Tower Week is still alot of PT, running, more PLFs, and getting yelled at, but the training starts taking on a more serious and dangerous face. You're introduced to the 34' tower. This is a room that sits on the top of a tower. You get to it by climbing about 4 flights of stairs and enter it through the floor. It has a door on each side. It's supposed to be a facsimile of a plane fusilage. The purpose here is to teach you how to exit the door of a plane, with body posture being the important thing. When you exit the door, you're in a harness that slides down a cable on a pulley. You're stopped at the bottom, where you're taken out of the harness and your exit is graded. You keep doing it until you get it right. The 34' tower is where there's going to be somemore dropouts. When you stand in the door, instead of 34' it looks like 200'. An instructor on the ground asks you your number. You yell it out to him. If you didn't look down at him when you answered, he'll ask you again until you do. I saw 3 guys walk back down.

The 250' tower has 4 arms at the top. Basically, you're hauled to the top in an open parachute and dropped from the end of one of the arms. Usually, they only use 3, or sometimes 2, of the arms at a time. That depends on which direction the wind is blowing. They don't want you being blown into the tower. This is to give you the feeling of actually floating down in a parachute, doing a PLF, and collapsing and gathering your chute.

Danny's already described Jump Week. The PT has slacked up abit. I think I remember getting in another hour of sleep. On my jumps, I jumped 3 C-130s and 2 C-119s. Completeing Jump School has always been one of the proudest accomplishments of my life.

Some info on the parachutes
 

THE MAIN CHUTE

The main chute (worn on the back) is the T-10. It is static line deployed.
The chute, ready to jump, weighs about 30 pounds.
The canopy is parabolic, with a diameter of 35 feet.
The rate of descent is about 17 feet per second.
The minimum jump altitude is 500 feet (the canopy will usually open fully within 250 feet, but I wouldn't care to try that).
Maximum jump speed is 150 knots.
If you count the suspension lines beneath the canopy, you will count 30, however there is actually only 15 as each line goes all the way over the canopy and down the other side.
Canopy is 1.1 ounce Ripstop nylon, which means that one square yard of it weighs 1.1 ounces. The weave of the material will not sustain a rip. Even cutting a "start" first, you cannot rip this material with both hands.
Each suspension line, from skirt of canopy to suspension harness link, is 25.5 feet.

THE RESERVE CHUTE

The reserve chute is the T-10R. It is worn in front. It has a 24 foot canopy and is ripcord deployed. It has a small spring loaded pilot chute to aid in deployment. It is constructed of the same canopy material and suspension line material as the main chute. It attaches to the main harness with snap hooks.

In the photo you can see the main chute with the yellow static line on the trooper's back and the reserve on his lower front.
You can also see the shiny ripcord handle on the right side of the reserve chute.

White Oak
 

<LABEL id=HbSession SessionId="3840325158">You say you jumped from a balloon in England? Why did they use balloons instead of aircraft? Was that a dirigible or a hot air balloon? I'd like to hear a little more about that, please.</LABEL>

Thanks
 

All