| Kommentar | In spite of the number of squaddies legging it out into the blue, Solitudinarian (around 90 in some cases, but all clean-fatigue jumps), we only had an average flight-path spread of about five miles, since everybody had cleared the Fat Albert in around 50 seconds. Thus a mahoosive DZ wasn't really necessary.
I did a couple of jumps with some of your buddies who wanted to earn Brit wings back in the day, and they really went on a steep learning curve. Some of them were 82nd Airborne and some were 101st Airborne (if memory serves), but they really had a job to get used to the "British way". There are only two orders: "Hook up" and "Go". All this farting about with checking each other and slapping shoulders is suborned to the one motto: "You rigged it, you ride it".
One one occasion, one of your buddies discovered a slightly frayed area on his static line and notified it to the Crab (RAF, not British Army) dispatcher (what you call a "jumpmaster, I believe). The dispatcher pulled his chiv, cut through the static line and tied it back together with a nice tight reef-knot. Your man still jumped, but did he ever look terrified:-)
On another occasion, and jumping from the balloon platform, some sergeant-rank fella forgot that we weren't actually moving through the air and did the obligatory Septic: "up 6, out 36", which made him do a complete and spectacular turn through his risers. He landed safely, but all the ground crew had never seen anything like it and wanted him to do it again on his next jump! He refused.
PS. Almost forgot. Yeah, if you could ask your buddies about the term "chalk" I'd very much appreciate it. |
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