Parachuting
Cpl Howson of 2175 Sqn on the Parachuting Course
On the 17th of July, I made my way down to London for a parachute course. Parachuting is a very rare thing in the Air Cadets, due to the fact that nearly everybody in the corps wants to do it. Once a year, 60 cadets in our region get the fantastic opportunity to go parachuting.
The next day, bright and early, we were picked up from the barracks by coach at 8 o’clock to be transported to RAF Weston-On-The-Green. It was there that we began our parachute course. Firstly, everyone was broken up into 4 groups, each with a different instructor. My instructor was a mad-man nicknamed Scouse because he came from Liverpool. We spent 8 hours that day on our ground training which was quite exhausting. When I first started the course, I was under the impression that you actually just ran at the door and jumped to exit the aircraft, however, I found out that there is a specific way to exit.
After we had perfected this area of training, we were then given the malfunction brief. In short: What do you do if something wrong happens with the parachute? Well, we were then trained to recognise various types of parachute malfunctions. Thankfully, malfunctions are very rare and because of the training we were given, we would know how to handle them. After we learned what to do when we were in control of our parachutes, we were given a written test. Everyone passed the written test, but we were told that we would have to wait until the next morning to do our jump.
We again woke up bright and early, most of us were really nervous but I wasn’t. Honest! When we arrived we were told who was going to be in the group that were jumping first. I was part of that group.
Unfortunately we were told that the winds were too high. We waited until noon for another weather update but it was bad news again. At 3 o’clock that afternoon, the instructors gave us another update. This was that there was a slight chance that the winds might drop to the required level to parachute later on in the evening. However, if we wanted that slight chance, then we would have to skip dinner. Everyone agreed to stay and we were rewarded with our chance.
At around 7 o’clock that evening, the winds dropped. Fantastic. However, this drop would only last half an hour, so we had to move quickly to get our equipment on.
The first load of jumpers were to put their jumpsuits, their parachutes and their altimeters on. This was around the time that my heart rate sped up! Within 5 minutes we were in the aeroplane. 5 minutes later we were at 3200 feet. Soon the plane started to slowly empty, but when it was my turn to jump, I couldn’t think! My mind just went blank! Finally, I jumped from a perfectly serviceable plane and my mind was still blank! It took me about 10 seconds to remember what I was actually supposed to be doing! I seemed to be in the air for ever!
Finally I landed, but it was truly an experience of a lifetime. I found out that I had only been in the air for 85 seconds, but it felt like a lifetime. I would love to go parachuting again, but I doubt I will ever have the chance to do it again whilst in the cadets. I loved the course, even the scary bits, and can actually say that I’ve been one of the very few people in the Air Training Corps who have been parachuting.