Man, I am not ripping on the guy because I don't think I would have ever had the guts for this, but this could have lead to some serious problems. Hate to be him when they landed. Volume Warning.

I hope they'd boot him out for that, maybe get 1 second chance and that's it... What did he think was going to happen? If I was going to enlist, I'd be doing some parachuting at a local place to see how bad it is..


I've been up to 10K ft with the air show teams a few times, even was harnessed at the door. But I'm scared to death of heights an jumping would be a whole different thing

"It is an unnatural act to jump out of a perfectly good airplane" Gunny Highway

"'Perfectly good' is usually a way to justify buying and maintaining an aircraft with vendors providing the lowest bid."

-Frank Giger.

I don't know how anyone can freeze in the door, to be honest. Just the amount of indoctrination and training leading up to it is more than enough to roll one out the door. I was third out the door of a C-130 on my first jump and to be honest I just wanted out of the damned plane!

And civilian jumping is entirely different than the mass tac environment of military jumping. Military jumping is actually much, much less scary.

Yup. I would only jump out in a parachute if I knew for sure the plane I was on was going to crash.

I was never a "happy" jumper. Had two bad experiences in jump school that kind of set the psychology for me. Those were reinforced by a night jump tree landing that beat me up pretty good. Still have lingering injuries. So every jump was a triumph of the will. But I never even hesitated. And as an officer and commander I usually stood in the door as first man.

It's a court martial offence in the British Army to refuse

That was probably jump school, going by the fact that none of them had camouflage covers on their helmets. Though it has been 29 years since I went through, things may have changed since then. If it was jump school he would have been sent on his way if the plane landed with him in it. If you're gonna refuse to jump that's the place to do it. I was first in my stick on a nap-of-the-earth regurgitron flight in a C141 and standing in the door as we lined up for my stick's pass at least got me some fresh air to clear some of the smell from my nostrils - much longer in that hot-as-hell airplane and I would have added to the bouquet LOL.

The 10-15 seconds you have from the time you stop saying "ohshitohshitohshit!" until you start hearing the instructors on the DZ below you shouting up instructions ending with and addressed to "leg!", and which you'd BETTER know when you're the leg being referred to, can be some of the most peaceful time you'll have in the army LOL

There is no such thing as a perfectly good airplane. In WWII more died in plane landings than parachute landings.

Having done it. I don't have a problem exiting the aircraft. It's the landings that get me. I jump and I'm like, "Hell Yea!!!!"

Then at about 200 feet before I hit, I start thinking....Crap, this sucks...why did I volunteer for this? It's followed up by a quick prayer that God doesn't allow me to compound fracture my Tib. The injury rate is about 2% with an injury that requires medical attention, no one is immune including the Group XO (COL) that snapped his ankle.

If anyone thinks the MC-6 or T-10D are anything like a parafoil chute...Well, good luck with that. It's a 18-22 foot decent rate (Ft. Carson is 22fps because of the altitude in the MC-6). You can run on your landing in a parafoil. Don't you dare try to stand up in a round canopy landing.


They did it all wrong. I've personally experienced a jumper like that. Black kid, first jump at Airborne. He grabbed the door frame and held on for dear life. The Safety reached over, told him to grab his reserve and they'd back him off the door. He nodded his head, grabbed his reserve. The SA behind him grabbed the cable, and swung and kicked him out the door. Later they told us, "No one jump refuses."

If you refuse to jump in unit, it's a company if not field grade Article 15. If you refuse to jump at Airborne, they typically give you crap details for 3-4 weeks as they cut you new orders and they make sure you know you are a quitter. I was told your chances of getting an Article 15 for jump refusal at Jump School depends on the jump number. You refuse on 1, you just quit. You refuse on jump 5 and you are in for a world of hurt.

We have had people jump refuse on their cherry jump 6(6th Jump). Typically it is 2 reasons, the camaraderie isn't there, because you are so new to the unit. The tailgate jump is so much harder than the door jump. You can't see the ground in a door jump till you get to the door. So you only see it for a second or two and typically can't think about it.

Tailgate jumps, well...They fly with that thing open and it looks like a scene out of Planet Earth. Then you walk toward it and all of a sudden you are out on the ramp and you have to consciously push through to the last 5 feet of the ramp. I didn't see the last jump refusal in Group, but they made it to about 3 feet and ran back. Since the "safeties" were broke, I think I would have just shoved the soldier out the ramp.

When they walked off the bird, they had the Riggers inspect the chute and then they separated them from us. We weren't allowed to talk to them or anything. They then picked the person up in a van. It was the last I saw of them. As we got on the plane they made sure to remind us that jump refusals would result in a career ending Article 15.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHqLxhmfnmY Oops! The moment he realized the reserve deployed...LOL! You know he was like, "SH!T..."

I agree, the only place I've seen soldiers without cammo on their helmets is in Group. We paint ours and never ever put the cammo on it.

I only did civilian Para-jump but enjoyed immensely.
Yes, the moment you are on the door is REALLY a "oh sh!t,oh sh!t,oh sh!t,oh sh!t" moment but I never walked off a plane I climbed in with a parachute.

Not sure if I could handle the "faster" landign of the military canopies though...
Is really so different?

Jump from a second floor and manage to not break anything. That's about the same landing speed as jumping with a T-10 or MC-6.

My first 10 to twelve flights in a C-130, I never landed. I then landed when they had a door failure. The mechanics came out checked it out and we were up and exiting. The second time I landed in a C-130 was after a jump in Africa, we loaded back up and flew back to our compound.

In my short 40ish jump career, I have only seen one refusal. Why did the put first-timers in the door blocking everybody else's exit? (172).
The extreme gyrations the pilot performed, surely not legal in a 172, on descending made the non-jumper wish he had gone out.

On a busy Saturday once, so busy I didn't think I would get in one jump let alone the max. three, there was a static line hang-up. Suddenly most of the names before mine on the manifest board suddenly disappeared, so I got my jumps in after all.

Different story had there been flak exploding all around. I'm sure there were plenty of boys afraid to jump onto European territory during WW2' but the 88's helps a bit. Fear is a great inspiration to doing fearful things. The World Trade Center proved that.

Holy sheeit. You serious? D:
OMG... but, but, how can you expect to survive healthy a drop and then FIGHT?!

I'm serious... wow- even more respect for the Airborne guys...

In the military I received some training in rappeling down from Helos (well not a flying helo, but a static mock-up) and that was hair rising enough.

Glad I was in the mortar infantry.

From the 170+ static-line jumps I did, I could probably count the amount of 'text-book' para rolls on landing on one hand. Anywhere you have approx 10 knotts of wind (in the UK, that's pretty much every day) then you come screaming into the floor so fast with your 150lb bergen with you that it's nigh on impossible to turn your fleshy bits to the ground and prepare for a 'nice' landing.

Then do it at night, when it's hard to gauge the ground rush and it usually goes something like heels, arse, head...arrghhhh.

I think the best jump I ever had was a stand-up landing at Goose Bay, Canada. Jumped out at -50 degrees C at 1000 feet and just slowly dropped down almost vertical. Also did some great exercises with the 82nd Airborne at Bragg including the purple star joint exercise in the 90's...I think there were about 5000 paratroopers jumping - absolutely awesome to look up/down/left/right and just see the sky filled with airborne brothers. (and sisters if I recall which was a new one for us)

Yes.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120419073152AAHEIoO

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-paratroopers-roll-on-landing

Landing knocks the wind out of you. It takes a second to compose yourself, probably different under fire, but still the landings are hard.

That said, it's not as bad with the MC-6 as it was with the T-10D. Airborne and the 82nd have gone to the T-11, its a softer landing than the T-10, but the trade off is that you never know if your chute is going to open.

chilly jump right here:

Well, that was ENLIGHTENING!
Thanks Timothy.

And as always, respect.