A little pass WWi but enjoyable

[carrick58 23]

Edited August 12, 2010 by carrick58

[Flyby PC 23]

 

 

That's awesome footage Carrick58. I knew the soviets were the earliest to develop paratroops in the early 1930's, but those pictures are amazing. The slow motion at the end is incredible. It all goes in reverse nowadays.

 

When you jump static line, as most Parabears do, you jump while your parachute is still tied to the aircraft. As you fall away, your weight causes various knots to snap and this allows your parachute to unfold and deploy in the correct sequence. The strongest tie, and therefor the last one to break, was the Apex tie right at the top of the canopy. Very often, the apex tie would still be attached to the canopy on the ground, and though it was actually forbidden to pinch it, it was a good souvenir to count your jumps by. Not that I ever did of course. Cough cough. Hmmahemm. Whistle, whistle...

 

The other thing about these knots and ties were that you repeatedly checked these as part of your pre-jump drill, and if anything wasn't 100% correct you got a new parachute. Naturally, because your parachute is on your back, you dont check your own ties, you check the guy in front. Had to laugh one time when moments before a jump, a dispatcher took out his hankerchief and held it against a man's chute so it looked like some white material was sticking out his parachute and flapping about in the breeze. He looked at the guy saying what's that? - Poor sod had an instant look of "WTF?!!!" trying to turn desperately to see his own back - Green on! - Go! 2 ,3, 4....

 

Dispatchers are the aircrew who look after the 'RAF' side of a drop. Sort of like the bus conductors on a bus that can fly (tee hee - don't mention it guys). Having a laugh at para's expense was encouraged to break the tension. Lots of guys didn't like jumping and one or two got a bit nervous. The odd chuckle helped a lot. Visual gags were best of all because you can't really hear very much above the engines unless it's really shouted out. I've seen lads who wanted their photo taken to have a photo of himself for his mum and gave his camera to the dispatcher, who run down the back and used up the film taking photo's of the aircrew all posing for the camera, then handing back the camera all used up. Bastards. All clean fun though.

 

Another time, we all had our names on our tin lids and were stacked into the Hercules ready for a jump. There was a phone handset just beside the side door, ( I presume for the dispatcher to speak to the pilot), but one time, the dispatcher picked it up as if he'd heard it ringing and starts shouting out "Higgins?" "Is there a Higgin's here?" Naturally 'Higgins' was sitting right there, wondering who it was calling and how the 'F' they got the number. Even funnier, Higgins caught on pretty quick and bawled out "FFS! I said don't call me at work!"

 

I suppose you had to be there, but very funny if you were.

[Slartibartfast 153]

Oh I have been there... I have 99 more take off's than landings... shame the 99th is the one that screwed me up most of mine where non-static line watching the world from 24000ft on a HAHO Jump is a very pleasant place to be very relaxing as well... HALO's on the other hand are for the adrenaline junkie well it was for me.

 

Good Vid as well...

[carrick58 23]

Great info. Thanks

[angles1100 0]

Great stuff thankyou for posting

 

 

cheers

[Flyby PC 23]

I think this has to be a C5 Galaxy. - Definitely not a Herc.

[carrick58 23]

OMG How Big is that thing ?