Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Jump Out of Airplanes?

Same here.

I was paid to stay in the plane. I could open the ramp and door from the cockpit.

Never have, never will. I'm mortified of heights, so there's just no way. Heck, my tree stand only gets hung as high as I can reach while standing on the ground. That's high enough for me.

Did just shy 50 jumps in four years of airborne with the Army. Even earned a set of German jump wings while stationed in Italy. I'm mainly paying for falling off a ladder in 2015 and forgetting to do a PLF, i know have a fused ankle and rocky or hilly terrain is hard to navigate.

I'm glad I only did it for four years, I saw some pretty nasty injuries. From detached biceps from the static lines plus several broken bones. Two people died from it one in my battalion while in Italy another in division while at Ft. Bragg. However, if I had it to do all over again I still would it was the best time I ever had in 21 years of service.

Hell. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!

Would love to have had more of the "Hollywood" jumps (once in a while we got one....).

Otherwise, 900-1200' AGL was the norm. At night.

Got kicked out a few times at 700' or so - those truly sucked the big one. The Ranger Bat fellas got that one regularly from what i'd heard...

Choppers too - Chinook's were the best, though Huey's were fun (in a schit-yer-pants sorta way). 1st Huey blast was on Hurt DZ on Bragg.

My kids wanna give it a try, though i've never donned a civilian chute i suppose it would be fun (kinda spendy though....).

I thank you, and all for your service!

I did, back in the early eighties. Nothing like it.

Yes.

Kid number 2 has told me a number of times he wants to parachute. Not sure where this will all end up. I personally don't have a desire to do it. But not so anti that I would say NEVER.

See what happens in the coming years. If someone were to get me to jump, it would be one of my kids.

Once, tandem, age 62.

Even after all of these years, People STILL ask me why I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane, so I had to explain to them that they weren't perfectly good airplanes. They were AIR FORCE airplanes; built by the lowest bidder, maintained by high school dropouts, and piloted by personnel of questionable sobriety, and since 80% of all air traffic accidents happen during take-off or landing, jumping out eliminated half of that danger.

A long time ago I made 38 static line jumps from C-130s and C-141s. At that time, the Army was big on sending aggressive company grade officers to the airborne school at Ft.Benning, the air assault school at Ft. Campbell, and the jungle school at Ft. Sherman in Panama.

Reminder to self, don't ever touch the black palms!

Jumping from a properly functioning plane for a thrill is silly.

Jumping from a chopper is more sensible. Don't forget to don a chute first.

I had 50+ jumps while on jump status (which isn't a lot really), HALO guys typically number in the hundreds. I hated everyone of them.
My not dad was a SmokeJumper and had somewhere close to 200 jumps, but he loved jumping out of airplanes.

I weighed around 220 and he was around 180 most the time so I think that played a part. I usually hit the ground pretty hard.

I used to.
49 jumps in the USMC and as a civilian combined.

Seems like a long time ago now.

The only thing I learned at The Jungle Operations Training Center was that I hated the jungle and never wanted to return. I was happy when the Chinese got The Canal.

I hated it too, but it was another merit badge that helped differentiate me from all of the other O2s and O3s whenever someone looked at my jacket pending promotions and assignments. At time time that sort of crap seemed important.

A lot of American sweat and blood went into building, maintaining, and defending The Canal, so giving up control of it seems like it was a bad thing. I strongly dislike and distrust the Chinese, but don't mind when they get bogged down in cesspools like Angola.

Agreed. My attitude sprang from the fact that I almost died from the Leptospirosis that I contracted there. I figured that, if that's what Panama had to offer, the Communists should be the ones to get it.

Yep, 1972. I'd do it again.