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Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Week 2 of Airborne School
This past week in Airborne school seemed to go by pretty quickly. I don't know if it was due to the longer days (usually not done until 1830 or so), or if it was just because we had already gotten used to how they do the training. Either way, we did a little less in the way of new training this week and mostly practiced and refined the skills we were already taught using some different equipment and training methods.
On Monday we learned the technique for conducting what they call a 'mass exit', or more specifically, everyone jumping out one right after another out of the plane.
We practiced this by lining up inside of a wooden framed mock aircraft with cables running down the center and all the dimensions the same as they would be for the C-130 airplanes we'll be likely to jump out of. We line up with 30 or so jumpers on each side of the plane and take commands from the jumpmaster in order. Each command has to be repeated by everyone on board in a certain manner. We stand up and hook up in groups of up to 15 per side in order to all jump out the door with approximately a one-second interval between us. We ran through the practice drill for this all morning long and then in the afternoon, we practiced what to do if we have malfunctions with our parachutes and need to pull the rip cord on our reserve parachute. There are a few different reasons that this would be necessary, and we had to remember and rehearse each one several times. One of them would be if we have broken suspension lines (the strings that connect the parachute to the risers), the other would be if there are blown out sections of the parachute, another would be if there are holes in the canopy larger than your helmet, and then the last would be if there were a total malfunction and the parachute does not open after you exit and count to 4-thousand.
The days are slightly blurred together, but I think the next morning we began practicing all of it together by exiting 4 at a time out of the 34 foot tower (only because they can only hook up 4 people at once). We get into the harness with our fake reserve parachute and practiced a couple exits with just the harness and reserve, which is what is referred to as a 'Hollywood' jump. Then we had to do a couple jumps hooked up with combat equipment, which includes a ruck sack and a weapons case. The ruck sack is attached upside down between your legs by a couple straps and then the weapons case is attached along your left leg. Once you are 200 feet above the ground, you are supposed to pull a quick release tab that releases your equipment from those straps and lowers it along another strap to about 15 feet below you. This makes sure that the equipment lands near you, but that you do not have to execute a parachute landing fall (PLF) with it attached to your legs. So, we had to practice exiting the 34 foot tower, pulling our reserve parachute, and then dropping our combat equipment before we got to the end of the cables and landed. We were able to accomplish all of this and then still have time to train in what is called the suspended harness.
The suspended harness is really just another rig attached to the ceiling that has risers (a.k.a. two inch wide straps that attach your harness to the suspension lines) so that you can practice 'slipping' to different directions. 'Slipping' is just a different way of saying, 'steering' your parachute. It is when you pull down on a set of risers in order to steer in that direction. We had to go over different types of 'slips' and why we use them and when to use them. Slipping in the suspended harness is much more difficult than slipping in the actual parachute during descent because you are actually pulling up all your body weight when you slip in the suspended harness, but when you slip in the parachute, you are really pulling a portion of the chute down to you to change its configuration. Once we were done practicing that, we received a block of instruction on the operation of the 250 foot tower and practiced emergency procedures in case someone were to get caught in the tower on their way down. This was in preparation for our turn on the tower Thursday.
Wednesday, we practiced our PLFs again in what they call the SLT, or swing landing trainer. In the SLT, we are in a harness attached to a cable and pulley system that comes down from the ceiling of a huge pavillion. You start off on a 12 foot platform and swing out over a gravel pit by falling forward off the platform. The instructor (black hat), holds the rope that controls your height off the ground and you have to pull a 'slip' in one direction or another in order to land properly. Once you have swung out and pulled your 'slip', the instructor will randomly drop you without warning by letting go of the rope, and you have to try to execute a proper PLF. The instructor then grades you and satisfactory or not, and you continue doing this several more times until you have gotten satisfactory grades falling at least 3 times to your right, left, left-front, right-front, left-rear, and right-rear. We did this ALL day on Wednesday until around 1800.
Thursday, we jumped from the 250 foot tower. I suppose I should more correctly say, fell from the 250 foot tower because you don't actually get to jump. You are connected to a parachute that is already open and suspended from a ring around the outside of it attached to a cable that descends from one of the tower arms down to the ground. Once you are hooked up to the cable and your parachute is properly spread out and attached, you are raised up from the top like one of those little plastic Army men.
On Monday we learned the technique for conducting what they call a 'mass exit', or more specifically, everyone jumping out one right after another out of the plane.
We practiced this by lining up inside of a wooden framed mock aircraft with cables running down the center and all the dimensions the same as they would be for the C-130 airplanes we'll be likely to jump out of. We line up with 30 or so jumpers on each side of the plane and take commands from the jumpmaster in order. Each command has to be repeated by everyone on board in a certain manner. We stand up and hook up in groups of up to 15 per side in order to all jump out the door with approximately a one-second interval between us. We ran through the practice drill for this all morning long and then in the afternoon, we practiced what to do if we have malfunctions with our parachutes and need to pull the rip cord on our reserve parachute. There are a few different reasons that this would be necessary, and we had to remember and rehearse each one several times. One of them would be if we have broken suspension lines (the strings that connect the parachute to the risers), the other would be if there are blown out sections of the parachute, another would be if there are holes in the canopy larger than your helmet, and then the last would be if there were a total malfunction and the parachute does not open after you exit and count to 4-thousand.
The days are slightly blurred together, but I think the next morning we began practicing all of it together by exiting 4 at a time out of the 34 foot tower (only because they can only hook up 4 people at once). We get into the harness with our fake reserve parachute and practiced a couple exits with just the harness and reserve, which is what is referred to as a 'Hollywood' jump. Then we had to do a couple jumps hooked up with combat equipment, which includes a ruck sack and a weapons case. The ruck sack is attached upside down between your legs by a couple straps and then the weapons case is attached along your left leg. Once you are 200 feet above the ground, you are supposed to pull a quick release tab that releases your equipment from those straps and lowers it along another strap to about 15 feet below you. This makes sure that the equipment lands near you, but that you do not have to execute a parachute landing fall (PLF) with it attached to your legs. So, we had to practice exiting the 34 foot tower, pulling our reserve parachute, and then dropping our combat equipment before we got to the end of the cables and landed. We were able to accomplish all of this and then still have time to train in what is called the suspended harness.
The suspended harness is really just another rig attached to the ceiling that has risers (a.k.a. two inch wide straps that attach your harness to the suspension lines) so that you can practice 'slipping' to different directions. 'Slipping' is just a different way of saying, 'steering' your parachute. It is when you pull down on a set of risers in order to steer in that direction. We had to go over different types of 'slips' and why we use them and when to use them. Slipping in the suspended harness is much more difficult than slipping in the actual parachute during descent because you are actually pulling up all your body weight when you slip in the suspended harness, but when you slip in the parachute, you are really pulling a portion of the chute down to you to change its configuration. Once we were done practicing that, we received a block of instruction on the operation of the 250 foot tower and practiced emergency procedures in case someone were to get caught in the tower on their way down. This was in preparation for our turn on the tower Thursday.
Wednesday, we practiced our PLFs again in what they call the SLT, or swing landing trainer. In the SLT, we are in a harness attached to a cable and pulley system that comes down from the ceiling of a huge pavillion. You start off on a 12 foot platform and swing out over a gravel pit by falling forward off the platform. The instructor (black hat), holds the rope that controls your height off the ground and you have to pull a 'slip' in one direction or another in order to land properly. Once you have swung out and pulled your 'slip', the instructor will randomly drop you without warning by letting go of the rope, and you have to try to execute a proper PLF. The instructor then grades you and satisfactory or not, and you continue doing this several more times until you have gotten satisfactory grades falling at least 3 times to your right, left, left-front, right-front, left-rear, and right-rear. We did this ALL day on Wednesday until around 1800.
Thursday, we jumped from the 250 foot tower. I suppose I should more correctly say, fell from the 250 foot tower because you don't actually get to jump. You are connected to a parachute that is already open and suspended from a ring around the outside of it attached to a cable that descends from one of the tower arms down to the ground. Once you are hooked up to the cable and your parachute is properly spread out and attached, you are raised up from the top like one of those little plastic Army men.
I took this picture of the three 250 foot towers that they have in the training area so you could get an idea of what they look like. Each tower has 4 arms at the top that you can get raised up by depending on which way the wind is blowing (you don't want to get blown into the tower). You can see the building at the base of the tower is inside of the tower legs. This is almost a 3 story building that houses the elevator equipment that raises and lowers the cables on the arms of the tower. I should probably mention that these towers were first built for the 1938 World's Fair in NYC and then moved to Ft. Benning in the 1940's. That is actually the main reason that they are still used. Most of the instructors do not like using them and think they should be removed from the course, but due to the historical nature of the towers and that they've been used since WWII, they remain as part of the instruction. I am definitely not a fan of heights, I don't want you to think that this is something that I do without fear, because I was definitely shaking when they raised me up to the top of the tower. Once you get towards the top, there is an automatic six foot stop where you pause in preparation to be dropped. When I hit that six foot automatic stop, I was at my peak of fear because I was not expecting it and just like in an elevator when you reach your floor at the top of the building and you have that feeling in your stomach of weightlessness, I felt that. Once you are at this point on the tower, you have to reach down and disconnect the safety line that is attached to your harness and run up around the ring outside of your parachute. Once the safety line is disconnected from the one side, you have to reach up and pull it hand-over-hand until it hangs free at your side. Then you have to disconnect the other side and let it fall free to the ground. Up until this, you are able to hold onto the risers up over your head, but you have to let go completely in order to remove the safetly line and it is a very uncomfortable feeling. Once you have done this, the instructor on the loudspeaker tells you to touch a specific set of risers that you will pull in order to 'slip' away from the tower upon release.
As soon as you touch them and tap your feet together twice, you are raised that last six feet and dropped. From that point on, it was one of the most fun things I've gotten to do:) I held the risers into my chest all the way to the ground and kept my feet and knees together until the balls of my feet made contact with the ground. I hit just as softly as if I had taken a little six inch hop and fallen down, so I had a really easy landing. There were several other people who weren't so lucky with the wind and landed like a sack of potatoes, but 71 out of 72 people in my platoon were able to walk away without injury. One guy landed with his feet apart and didn't rotate his body away from the ground properly and ended up hurting his knee...he is out of the course now. We finished the tower by about 1400 on Thursday and then went back to the suspended harness for another class.
In the suspended harness this time, we practiced diagonal 'slips' which make a jumper go much faster than regular slips by pulling further down on only one riser instead of two. We would use these during descent in order to avoid other jumpers in the air and to avoid obstacles on the ground we may be drifting towards. We also learned and practiced what to do in case of a water landing, a tree landing, or drifting into high tension wires. Then we practiced what to do in the case of collision with other jumpers in the air and in case of entanglement with other jumpers in the air.
On Friday we had our last formal block of instruction on malfunctions with the parachute and watched as they dropped a couple dummies from the 250 foot tower with different malfunctions. Then we cleaned up the training area in preparation for the next class to use it. After lunch, we ran about a mile down to the airfield and put our combat equipment together and got introduced to the harness shed where we will prepare and wait to jump on Monday. The harness shed is simply a large building with several rows of large wooden benches to sit on in 'chalks' (the groups of people you jump with). Inside the harness shed you have to sit with your feet together and you can't talk. You have to have your helmet on and you have to run anytime you move inside the shed. Anytime you are told to execute a facing movement or stand-up or sit-down, you have to sound off with 'Airborne!'. If you don't follow those rules, they say they will recycle you to the following class. Once we were done rigging our combat equipment for the upcoming week, we ran back to the company area and were released for the weekend.
Tonight at 1800 we have another recall formation and should get our schedule of jumps so we can tell people if they want to come out to the drop zone to watch. The drop zone is open to civilians to watch if they want to come out and take pictures or whatever, so many families will come out and sit in the bleachers out there to watch students jump in. One of our friends who is stationed here for the career course said she would come out and take pictures for us at the drop zone, so whenever I get those pictures I will post those up here next week. That's all for now!
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