AirBorne Combat jump is at 500 feet.With no reserve chute by the way.Wouldn't be time to deploy it if main chute failed anyway.Lower training jumps are around 2000 feet except in some special cases.Interestingly enough? There were some combat jumps made with NO chutes during WWII. Those Guys had to have nuts like no one else on Earth!
I jumped off the barn roof with a bed sheet parachute once about 50 years ago.That was high enough for me.
I fell more times than I jumped.
I jumped....more of a flying leap really off the edge of my Great Uncle's gravel pit at the dare of my younger sister. I flew out about 25' but dropped at least 50 into a steep sand bank when I was 13. Hit really hard and got covered in sand but had so much fun 'flying' I did it a few more times.At 30 I jumped out of a plane at 13,000' with an instructor strapped to my back. It was slightly disappointing only accelerating to 125mph from the 90 the plane was going. Taking a 'zipper' while rock climbing or bunjie jumping had more of a rush in accelerating. Anyway, we were 'falling with style' and I was so relaxed he asked if I wanted to do some spins. We spun left several times, then right taking in the scenic views of the turning fall foliage, what a view!I gave him the signal that we had reached the 5500' to pull the chute and he said "we are good for a little more". I showed him the sign for 4k' and he said "ok". He DIDN'T tell me the 'rip cord' comes off! (apparently no big deal) Unfortunately we were still falling at what should have been an alarming rate because the chute shrouds were twisted. I asked him if we should cut away and pull the reserve (what the heck do I know it's my first jump) He said "no we're good, just give it a minute". Uh, we don't have a minuet, we are going to hit the ground in 15 seconds I was thinking but still relaxed (no really) Moments later the last twist came out of the shrouds, the chute opened and we came to what seemed like a dead stop. We floated down the last 1500 feet, setup for our flair and landed spot on our intended LZ.My instructor apologized for the traumatic first jump and offered another, less eventful jump for free. "*(&^ YEAH!"
First phase of yard wrecking complete, now the fun part, cleaning up this mess, I don't know what is worse, Michael blowing it down or me cutting it down. I am going to take a break from it for a few days to let one knee heal up a little. Probably go fish a little and throw for some mullet to smoke. Show some love to the air guns. Just a different kind of me time.
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