Was talking about this with a few of my mates and decided to put it up here. These are my ten favourite parachute jumps.
1.My first balloon jump on my course.Id never flown before and that was the highest Id been. Scared the shit out of me.
2 My eleventh jump since becoming a Para was into Ginkle heath for the 1970 anniversary drop with 10 Para.I was one of the youngest soldiers on the drop. Fantastic.
3 1971 jumping with 21 and 23 SAS in to Belgium as saboteurs to test their cold war defenses. First time Id jumped at night into snow.
4 1977 My first foreign Parachute course with the German 272 Falschirmjager battalion. Great time.
5/ 1979 Jumping at Fort Brag with the 82nd Airborne. First time I jumped a jet. C-141 Starlifter was one hell of a buzz.
6 1996 Jumping with the Estonian Special Forces. Russian drogue system only opens the pilot chute and its cross between free fall and static line. Strange system but good fun.
7 2000 Jumping into the Merville gun battery as part of the Normandy anniversary events.No Dz.Just jumped over the battery just like WW2.What a buzz.
8 2002 Jumping into Driel, the Polish DZ at Arnhem. First time round parachutes had landed their since 1944.What an honour.
9 2004 Jumping onto the DZ next to the John Frost bridge,Arnhem to prove they could have jumped there in 1944. Another honour not lost on any of us.
10 Dropping onto Sannerville DZ Normandy. First time that had been done since 1944. Another great honour for us.
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.
