Military parachutes

[Frodo 0]

This question was bothering me even before, but since I saw the program on Discovery about the Airborne school, I became even more curious.
Why are they using round canopies? Some of the obvious disadvantages of the rounds are:

- injuries - have you seen the landings? it's a disaster! the descend rate is so high that within several dozen jumps you're almost guaranteed to break something

- (almost) not steerable -- the fact that square canopies can fly quite some distance seems to be invaluable to the military, yet they don't utilize the possibility.

- heavier & bigger - in fact so big that they have to pack the reserve in the front! They could place some useful combat equipment instead of the reserve, had they been using skydiving-style rigs.

The military are usually on the leading edge in terms of latest technologies, expensive toys and so on. Are they just "caught in a time warp" in this case? Whatever the reason, I won't believe they simply can't afford it.

[Remster 30]

If you static line 100s of guys from hercs, they are the best tool for the job.

Remster

[DJL 235]

Several hundred 20 year olds in the dark on unfamiliar terrain with lots of equipment strapped to them and a giant dose of adrenaline because someone might shoot.

"I encourage all awesome dangerous behavior." - Jeffro Fincher

[Amazon 7]

My first 5 jumps were compliments of that US Army school in GA...

Reason... who knows completely but... a combat jump is done at relatively high speed 130Knots at very low altitude....700 ft ( like the reserve is gonna do you a lot of good from there anyway....and all done at night.

They are carrying a LOT of equipment 100 lbs plus.... that they drop from a lanyard once under canopy so it lands first.

Finally.... have you ever seen several hundred people all in the air at one time under canopy....

One of them ran off the top of my canopy on my 3rd jump... Canopy RW is not recomended under T-10 canopies

Amazon

[jlmiracle 7]

I've asked that question to a military guy that does that and his response was...do you really want to be flying around with 100-200 other people with steerable canopies at dusk

I thought it was a good point. My answer would be no.

Judy

Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

[Zenister 0]

military rounds are designed to do one thing..

get 80% of your force on the ground and still combat effective.

someone under a sport canopy large enough to handle some of the loadings the military uses would also make a hell of an easy tgt for ground fire. forward glide isnt really something you want in a mass tac either..the idea is not to have your unit spread across to many miles of enemy territory. you want them pretty much right where you drop them which is also why you exit at 800ft or so..

one of the HALO gents around here could explain what they do use sport type canopies for.

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[Hooknswoop 19]

The faster the jump run, the faster the canopy opens and the less exposed the aircraft is. The lower they drop, the less time the trooper has their ass exposed to get shot. With so many people in the air, square canopys would cause more problems than they solve, plus require more training. Rounds are cheaper and the maintanence system is already in place, change costs money (lots of rounds in the U.S Army, riggers trained on them, troopers trained to jump them, schools set up to teach them ,etc). It really is the best tool for the job. If the main mals, there is no need to cutaway, simply deploy the reserve, rounds don't tend to entangle or down/plane like squares do. No sliders, brake settings, etc. Very simple system.

Hook

[dgskydive 0]

Being an ex-military jumper I'll tell you this. First of all, in actual combat you are no higher then 500-600 ft. as you exit the aircraft. You want something that will open fast and be able to handle not only your wieght, but the 100 + pounds of gear you are carrying. Basically at that altitude and with that much shit hanging of your body round work the best. They are really only a break before you hit the ground. Also when you have a couple hundred canopies in the same airspace you tend to bump into each other alot. Sometimes even "landing" on someone else's canopy before you hit the ground. I'm talking way before you are ready to land. Then it is a matter of running of the guys canopy and hoping yours reinflates before you hit the ground. Try that with a Square! I don't think most squares would stand up to the wind blast off of a C-130 or C-141 at the speeds they dropped us at.

Dom

[Amazon 7]

I know..Hook. was just being a smart ass...and I even volunteered for that 3 weeks of fun... Hell I was Air Farce, and I never busted anything under those sky barges. nor under the C-9's we jumped...and all the guys around.. woo hoo even if most of them were shorter than I was.



Amazon

[AggieDave 6]

In Panama, Rangers went out at 400ft sans reserve.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Amazon 7]

When I went to Panama for Tropical Survival Training at Howard Airbase.... or was that Albrook... hmm I forget.. I remember bugs and snakes and Chaco Indians and camping out in the jungle. I heard about those guys..... most of them the ones they would not let back into the states cause they went whack job in the Nam.

Amazon

[dgskydive 0]

The Special Forces Teams I used to train with used GOLIATH 320's I think, maybe even bigger. They are used for infiltration at night with very small teams. They exit upwards of 20,000 ft., and open around 5,000 ft,(think) thus H.A.L.O High Altitude Low Opening.

Dom

[dgskydive 0]

Very true. I had a few friends on those jumps. I didn't want to give that hieght because I wasn't sure. Hell in WW2 there were stories of guys go out as low as 250 ft! Reserves are no good under 750ft. anyway. Why but on the extra wieght?

Dom

[Ron 10]

The plan on a military combat jump is 500 feet.
On practice mass tacs the altitude was planned to be 800 feet. This was for the lead plane....each additional plane was I think 50 feet higher.

Some were given a reserve if they wanted one, but they were not saftey pinned on to you like on a practice mass tac.

Funny story (well sort of funny).

A guy sitting in a C130 right before the jump into Panama gets shot (not bad) through the plane on jump run. He starts to say "I'm Hit!, I'm Hit!" The Jump master heard "I quit!, I quit!" And was about to throw his ass out the plane for being a coward....Then somone saw the blood.

Oh well...

And as for why they are not square....Well you only have to make a jump every 3 mths to be current in the Army. I was in for 3 years in the 82d, and only made 34 military jumps. And I jumped a lot more than I was needed to.

34 jumps /3 years... 11 jumps a year. Not nearly enough to be safe with a steerable canopy with 500 other steerable canopies in a small space.

Ron

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

[kmfreefly 0]

Nice Troll!!

Team Flew-id
Making freefall pretty since 1998

[Amazon 7]

Even Better Acronym HAHO

High Altitute High Opening... can you say CROSS COUNTRY . Hop and pop at 30k.... ever see a vapor contrail from your own helmet

Amazon

[Jethers203 0]

Because real men don't need to steer.

And everything else people said above.

John D-24352

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

Quote

The Special Forces Teams I used to train with used GOLIATH 320's I think, maybe even bigger. .

Negative, Ghost Rider. Current HALO main is the MC-4 (375). It's predecessor was the MT-1XX (also 375 square foot 7-cell). Predecessor to that was the HAPPS and other prototypes with such lovely parachutes as as the Unit III, etc. Thank Mister Bill Mathews (MSG, retired) for getting the square in the army inventory for specops use.

Chuck Blue
MFFJM (among other things)

[AggieDave 6]

Chuck,

You've got to meet one of the guys that jumps at Aggieland. He's HALO #2. Col. Bill Maples ret. every once in a blue moon, we can get him to tell a story, but we can never get him to tell any of the good ones.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Zenister 0]

one of thye warrants i worked for used to tell me the story about how he was jumpmastering ( kind of a pick up i guess he wasnt planing on jumping) a training HALO jump and leaned back against the wrong part of the plane...(no door) and inadvertantly exited several miles from where the students were going out eventually landing in a pizza hut parking lot

i've been giving him shit ever since i started skydiving about watching the backstep....i wish i could have heard him curse all the way down in freefall..

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[jdhill 0]

When I was in jump school, one of the black hats leaned out to do his door check, he lost his grip on the door frame and out he went, on the wrong side of the Chattahochee (sp?)... all of the other JMs on the plane were leaning out the door watching for him to pull, which he did (he was wearing a bailout rig, not S/L).

It was the 1st jump for the class, about 1 min out. I'd say it upped the pucker factor for everyone.

Josh

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. - Edmund Burke

[SkymonkeyONE 4]

That's generally pretty funny. Only time it sucks is when you become a towed jumper. Did anyone else here know our own KatieBear has been a towed jumper on a military SL jump?

Chuck

[Amazon 7]

What happened.. did some rigger get carried away with all the stitching for pack closure.. or is she just too light to break it open

Not a problem I ever had...

Amazon

[riggerrob 643]

Check out this website for the next generation in military static-line canopies.

www.paraflite.com/html/advancedparachute.html

[dgskydive 0]

Thanks for the clarification on the canopies. Thats why I said "I think". I haven't seen a halo jump since 97.

Dom