Friday Parachute Jump

Ok, so I haven’t started leave yet so still been kind of busy.

Yesterday we had a jump in Watkins, CO. The plan was a Chinook and two Black Hawks. You really can’t beat that for jump platforms. I mean they’re the easiest to jump from. I was on the first chalk first stick which meant I would be one of the first jumping. This was all with a nasty head cold I’ve developed.

We rigged parachutes at the Watkins armory where the aircraft were landing then flying the three miles or so to DZ Bugeater. The winds seemed calm where we loaded the aircraft before we moved to the drop zone. I was on the first pass out and the exit went well. What we all found out pretty quickly was the winds at altitude were pretty high. We were jumping the SF-10 parachute which is somewhat steerable and has a pretty good forward thrust. At zero brakes facing into the wind I was still being pushed back at a considerable rate. This meant regardless of what I wanted I would be doing a rear PLF (parachute landing fall).

My landing was not the hardest I’ve had but was a bit rough. The wind caught my chute and re-inflated the canopy and pulled me about ten feet before I could get the canopy release unhooked which deflated my chute and I stopped. Not a bad first jump after a deployment.

The second pass was delayed as the winds jumped over the wind limit. After waiting about 15 minutes the second pass was a go. They found the winds gusting on them as their chutes opened and one person had a tough landing into a fence. He was cut up a bit but not too bad.

That was the last pass as the winds stayed above the wind limit and we were on a time line for a welcome home ceremony later that day.

I won’t say much about the welcome home ceremony since this was more for the BN than our Company which had theirs the day we landed in Fort Carson and very few of us in the company had any desire to be there at all.

Anyway that was basically my Friday. Now to get over this cold and take the family to the movies.

We will probably see WALL-E.