Little over 6 years, 64 jumps total.... sounds about right. That's even being primarily an air-lando commando in Aco. I understand things change with mission focus and all that crap, but food for thought with jump proficency... There's guys running around in Regiment with how many mustard stains? Getting rusty on jumping is something that can be very expensive in terms of life, equipment, or time spent healing back up. More so than the associated costs both fiscal and physical with maintaining jump proficiency. Just what I think.
I agree to a certain extent, but also disagree greatly. DZ link ups and continuing a mission are great training events. However hollywood jumps, or even admin equipment jumps are a huge waste of time and money in my mind. How many times do I need to put on a harness and make sure that gravity still works. I think once a year is a pretty good number for that. But instead I have to jump a minimum of four times, but more like 6 or 7. Seems like about 6 times what is really needed for 95% of the army. Ranger Regiment and maybe 11B's/combat arms being an exception because you all have a legit mission that is focused on the forced entry. But an entire base filled with pog ass airborne qual'd cooks and admin clerks is out of hand to me. Not to mention the pay, which is probably a whole lot of money in itself, but how much money is spent on C-17's and -130's so that people who sit at a desk 90% of the time can fall out of an airplane? I am sure it is a lot of money.
Well, I can count the number of admin equip/hollywood jumps I've done without taking my shoes off... If we jumped, we linked up and did tactical movement. Completely admin jumps were 'fun jumps' the few times we had them... like helo jumps, etc. Even those, you're still conducting linkup if you're in the line companies. That, and the AF needs all the practice they can get on doing drops anyway. Boon... how many times did we get dropped 'wrong'?
Oh lord... don't remind me about that night... I didn't even jump that night and it still scares the shit out of me thinking about it. DZSO to me as RTO: "Cleared to drop" me: "Bird this is me, cleared to drop" bird: LOL FUCK CARP GREEN LIGHT GO GO GO Jumpmasters: Derp it's green, must be time to get out, unass this bird men! me with NV down, seeing the first chute open a couple miles off the dz: "ABORT ABORT ABORT" DZSO: "Aww fuck." That would be the most reliably fucked up one out of the bunch. Late greens/reds from a crew not abiding by airspeed and DZ timing, totally blowing off where the DZ actually is, etc etc.
The entire world is an acceptable DZ when you are pilots...sorry muther-fuckers. Anyone here ever jumped the DZ in Tolema, Colombia from a MC-130... Those fuckers have no idea about what an acceptable airspeed looks like after cresting the mountain... Crip
I would honestly take the reduction in pay I I wasnt forced to waste a day of my life every few months to go sit on a wet dropzone, knowing full well the night before we are not going to jump the next day. But syltill low and behold, there I am wasting both my, and the armys time and resources
Yeah Tolemaida... That was the worst jump I have made...well except for having been a towed jumper and having a canopy collapse... My favorites have been water jumps at Hurlburt...they hurt less! Crip
I still have the reserve handle I pulled.... what's it to you? In 186 jumps, I had one that required prayer and emergency procedures (concurrently) during descent (crappy packing job by the rigging shed, half collapsed mae west and blown gores...) you never had any kind of malfunction?
