Jumping Out of Perfectly Good Airplanes
Paratroopers enjoy a long and illustrious military legacy.
I went through the U.S. Army Airborne School in the summer of 1987. Fort Benning, Georgia, in August is the hottest place on planet Earth. It’s like nuclear reactor-core hot. I later discovered that the U.S. military actually offered tougher challenges than jump school. However, for a skinny teenager from Mississippi just getting comfortable in a set of BDUs, airborne training was a great foundation.
Entry into the military is intentionally dehumanizing. I was instantly transformed from the normal person, Willis N. Dabbs, into C-174. That number was stenciled onto my helmet. Everywhere I went and everything I did, that was my new name … my airborne name. It grew on me.
The instructors were called Black Hats because they wore hats that were black. They were also all, to a man, inveterate sadists who could outrun Usain Bolt while chain-smoking cigarettes. My every waking moment was spent actively avoiding them.
Airborne instructors are called Black Hats. As near as I could tell,
they were all recruited from someplace in hell. Credit: U.S. Army
Layout
Airborne school is divided up into three 1-week phases. Ground Week teaches you how to land. Believe it or not, that’s tougher than just falling down. There’s a definite technique to executing a proper Parachute Landing Fall (PLF). Here’s where you learn to do that.
Tower Week teaches you how to jump. That includes how to move about the airplane safely, how to exit the aircraft and stuff you need to know in case something goes wrong. This week culminates with a ride or two up the 250-foot towers. In this case, you strap into a real parachute, get winched up to the top of the tower, and then are cut loose to descend under canopy. That’s better than anything you will ever find at a theme park, at least the ones with actual insurance.
Jump Week is when you make your five parachute jumps. We used USAF C130 and C141 cargo planes. Three of those are Hollywood jumps, wherein you only wear your main parachute and a reserve. Two are executed in full combat equipment with a rucksack and weapons container. One of those equipment jumps is done at night. I seem to recall that one of my Hollywood jumps was after dark as well, but don’t hold me to that. That was a long time ago.
Ground week teaches you how to fall sort-of gracefully. Credit: U.S. Army
Details
Every day starts with a run. Monday through Thursday, that’s maybe three miles at a fairly blistering pace. Friday runs are roughly twice that far. Every time you move, you have to do some kind of physical training, such as pushups when you enter or exit the company area and pull-ups before each meal.
Training was uniformly miserable. It was conducted underneath giant permanent tents in huge sawdust beds. Periodically, they’d march us through a bank of showerheads that soaked us to our skins. We then marched back to the training area and rolled around in the sawdust … just because.
The food was great, but you only got five minutes to eat it. I’m not really sure how that made us better soldiers, but it did help keep us lean. One Friday, the fare was Alaskan king crab legs. There’s literally no telling how much it cost to feed us all that.
I’m from Mississippi. I had never seen an Alaskan king crab leg before. They looked like giant spider parts to me. I burned my five minutes beating on the thing with a butter knife and never did get anything edible out of it. I ended up having to throw the whole shebang away. Later that evening, I did score a Pop-Tart.
It’s easy to get hurt at jump school, particularly strained ankles. All of the formation areas are covered in large-bore gravel that is tough to walk across. This helps expose injuries. I turned an ankle on my first Hollywood jump. However, I had little interest in repeating anything. I muddled through the day, hobbled over to the shopette (that’s what they call convenience stores on Army bases), and bought a roll of duct tape. For the rest of the week that ankle was locked up tighter than an HK flash suppressor. That was likely not the healthiest approach, but it helped me get my wings.
Tower week covers actions in and around the aircraft and what to do if life goes sideways.
Credit: U.S. Army
The Event
Most of Jump Week was spent crammed like sardines into an oven-like airplane hangar waiting on the airplanes. We packed a length of 2×4 lumber in our weapons containers to simulate a rifle. Mine was too long to fit and stuck out the top. I was clearly doomed. When I went to execute my PLF, that thing was going to rip my arm off.
C-173 was a little skinny guy from Puerto Rico. He scurried off and came back with a stubbier piece of lumber. I stashed my big piece away under the table, and no one was the wiser. I will be forever grateful to C-173 for that.
I got to stand in the door twice. I’ve always been kind of lucky like that. I’m also pretty meticulous about my diction and tend to eschew profanity. However, on my first jump, I clearly remember looking at my boots upside down with the airplane silhouetted behind them. I reflexively said a very bad word but didn’t actually mean it.
It’s actually quite peaceful once you clear the airplane. You can easily chat with your buddies on the way down. Jumping from 1,250 feet put us in the air for about a minute. Combat jumps are typically less than half that.
Hitting the ground hurts. It feels like you jumped off the roof of a house. I would liken the experience to having somebody smack you in the feet with a boat paddle. Military parachutes are designed to minimize your time dangling helplessly under canopy.
Jump week pulls everything together for five static line parachute jumps.
At least one of these is conducted at night. Credit: U.S. Army
Ruminations
In school, you have two jumpmasters. In the real world, it only takes one. One girl was about to jump when the light unexpectedly went from green back to red. One jumpmaster pushed while the other pulled. I could hear her bouncing down the outside of the aircraft, but she turned out fine.
One poor slob got mixed up and landed with the wind. He did a perfect PLF at an exorbitant rate of speed, snapping both legs below the knees. The Black Hats claimed one guy died of heatstroke on a Friday run. I saw an ambulance. However, I don’t know if he really died or if they were just screwing with us. They screwed with us a lot.
When it was all over, I got my maroon beret and jump wings. I parachuted again later, but never quite like that. Though I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything in the world, there’s also not enough money on the planet to get me to go do that over again. C-174, out.
