Military Parachuting for fun!

I joined Pathfinder Parachute Group Europe after I left the regular army. Id been a Paratrooper in the British army: also a free fall parachutist. I enjoyed it, but it no longer gave me the thrill I sought. It had got old hat. I still got a buzz, but it was beginning to wear off.

 

As a Paratrooper I had enjoyed the thrill and danger that military parachuting produced. A battalion drop at night, accompanied by several other C130 hercules flying above and below and to one side. Performing a double door despatch and with heavy drop aircraft coming up behind to drop your vehicles to you (Hopefully on a different DZ).

 

After a three hour, low level flight, with fellow Para's puking into sick bags and sometimes into their helmets you just wanted to get out of the door and 'into the silk'. Then a forty minute stand up while you waited for the pilot to find the DZ and all the while carrying a heavy personal weapons container with your rifle and equipment with maybe extra mortar rounds, ammunition for the GPMG or the other 101 items the QM handed you before you got on the aircraft. It was bloody hard work, but I loved it.

 

 

I wanted a similar challenge and found it in Pathfinder. They do parachuting in its purest form. It hadn't changed much since Leonardo Da Vinci did his first drawings of a Parachute on the back of his toilet door.

 

There was none of this 'Stable exit' positioning in the door as in the free fall world. Just sit in the door with your feet outside and turned towards the rear of the aircraft. Hands across the reserve, tap on the helmet and the reassure words of the caring jump master in your ear. GO! and you slide gracefully into the slipstream to wait for the ground to come up and step onto it with the correct pause of Tup! Three! Or in my case hurtle earthwards and arrive.

 

There is no weapons containers, no three hours low level flying before a jump and the only time anyone is sick is if they had too much to drink in the bar last night, and strangely they still use round parachutes.The classic cars of the Parachuting world. All Pathfinders members train military style and wear their old combats during training. The military discipline kicks and it rubs off on the civilians on the course.

 

The BPA in there wisdom stopped round canopy parachuting in England several years ago, which was very short sighted. Pathfinder although a British led veterans Parachute club, is based in Holland where the Dutch happily allow them to jump in the style they were taught in the military using American military surplus chutes and from a verity of aircraft from a Cessna Caravan, former Russian AN2 Colt or the good old DC3 Dakota.

 

Pathfinder run a basic course for the novice and refresher courses for the former paratroopers amongst them. The instructors are mainly British, former Paratroopers, from famous sky diving teams such as the Red Devils and The Silver Stars with thousands of jumps between them, but all dedicated to keeping round parachuting alive in the civilian sports community.

 

 

I think my proudest moment with Pathfinder was leaping into space over the Ginkle heath Drop zone in Holland to commemorate the battle for Arnhem and to help the public remember the veterans and their sacrifices. This is my sport and it keeps me sane.