Years ago right before a July 4th holiday I was out shooting clay pigeons with my dad and his best friend on the friend's property.

I was filming, the friend was working the thrower and my dad was shooting and one small little hill over was a helicopter from Fort Ord with jumpers practicing for a July 4th jump.

We stopped shooting to watch and me to film.

A few guys jumped out and I was drawn to one guy whose chute didn't fully open and trailed behind him. I mean he was falling fast like you'd think and then he disappeared behind a hill with me filing all the way down.

Turns out he pulled his reserve and it deployed right before he hit. He crashed into the local cemetery and suffered a broken leg but otherwise survived.

The helicopter crew didn't know if we'd shot at him or not and they zoomed down around 100 feet above us with a slow circle before realizing our presence was coincidental with the accident.

I still have the video of it somewhere but yes, it was rather freaky and shocking to see the trailing parachute and him disappearing. Not sure what happened to him until I read about it in the paper.

HALO altitudes differentiate between high opening, and low; there is no top altitude which qualifies the jump as a HALO. HALO jumps can be conducted from a few thousand, to 30,000. Below 18,000, the jumps are typically done without oxygen; certain operations require prebreathing, others oxygen out the door with a bottle. A HALO jump is a skydive; a freefall jump, typically opening at the same altitudes any skydiver does: 3,000 (or lower).

Typical skydives are 12,500' where able; how high that is above sea level depends on the elevation of the drop zone. I've done a number of years of military jumpers, and typically for HALO training operations, anywhere form 6,000 to 12,000 above ground.

The small hole in the roof doesn't suggest any kind of forward flight under canopy, but a nearly vertical descent. This indicates that the parachute was largely a "ball of garbage" which could be a number of malfunctions, but with the canopy out of the deployment bag and at least partially opened. There would have to be adequate drag from whatever he had above him, to enable the survival. I've been present for a number of fatalities and severe injuries, including my own, at drop zones, and despite all the stories and assertions to the contrary, one does not live with no parachute above. (doubtless I'll hear all about the cases that prove this wrong...but they're not true).

I had a mishap involving a spinning malfunction with severed steering toggles and end cell closures, which impacted a cliff many years ago. I ended up in intensive care. No broken bones, but injuries which bother me several decades later, to this day. The jumper in that picture is lucky, but I guarantee that jump will stay with him for a long long time.

An inch or two either way when he went through that roof, they'd be pouring him out of his boots.

The typical descent rate under a round canopy, incidentally, is 25' per second, which equates to 17 mph vertically. It's enough to get hurt.

Smaller skydiving canopies today can produce serious injuries or death from a normal, perfectly functioning canopy, because they are so small, so high performance, and can land at such high speeds. In many cases, small sub-70 square foot ram air canopies are landing at speeds of 50-70 mph, and where the "hook turn" or low altitude turn used to be forbidden at many drop zones, it's a necessity to add the velocity needed to flare the canopy. They're fast.

Military canopies are slower, are never landed out of a hook turn, and are required to support not only the jumper, but all his gear.

A jumper who is in a stable face-down position will typically free fall at 110-120 mph. A position other than stable face to earth will result in a higher rate of descent, and an unreliable altimeter reading during the descent. It can also greatly complicate a reserve deployment, or even a main deployment. Likewise, the presence of gear can cause a malfunction. A large ruck sack and weapons, etc, are slung between the legs for exit and freefall, and then released on a lanyard prior to landing, the moment of that ruck when released, and the aerodynamics of it when secured in place, can complicate the freefall, landing, and recovery from unusual positions, upsets, or malfunctions.

He's British SAS or some other Special Forces type training with our guys, he wouldn't be using a T-11, would he? Would be some sort of secret squirrel rig more likely, right?

There's nothing secret about freefall rigs.

One isn't doing freefall with a T-11. A T-11 is a modified round parachute, which is used for static line jumps. HAHO and HALO jumps need steerable canopies with drive and forward speed: a ram-air canopy. It's a ram-air canopy that he's using; a square parachute with forward speed and inflatable cells, like any other current freefall canopy. In most cases, the reserves are ram-air canopies, too, with the exception of chest-mount reserves which typically use a round parachute.

The T-11, while somewhat "square" in appearance," is still a round canopy by definition,lacks cells, forward speed, or steerability. Presently it's in use with the Canadians and the US, but only Finland has integrated it in Europe. Various forces training in the US will use it while training, but it's not a standard British canopy and isn't used for HALO or HAHO operations.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
The T-11, while somewhat "square" in appearance," is still a round canopy by definition,lacks cells, forward speed, or steerability.

I nearly >< made a fool of myself by responding with a wildly-incorrect assertion regarding that chute. I had assumed the T-11 was a modernization of the "modified round" chute, which does have steerability and does have forward speed. That's what I jumped with.

Those gear bags these guys jump with are 100 plus pounds and the rigs they use are essentially tandem parachute systems in the area of 350+ square feet. He is hanging from his reserve risers and his brakes are still stowed. Even a small issue with all that gear can be a mess to deal with 100 + pounds of crap on you chest. He obviously released the pack since its not hooked to the upper harness.


What ever happened I pray our ally will be okay. As a joke I would like to sit down with him and explain the meaning of the 3rd Amendment of the constitution in more detail...

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
[QUOTE]I had assumed the T-11 was a modernization of the "modified round" chute, which does have steerability and does have forward speed. That's what I jumped with.

You were probably jumping a T-10 with a T-U modification; these were large 35' nylon canopies with mesh panels in the back, used for static line jumping. They had rudimentary steering and a little bit of drive from airflow spilled out the mesh panels on the back. The T-10 doesn't have the capability to travel much, but at least it can be turned into the wind to minimize, to some degree, backward drift, and to attempt to turn away from another canopy.

Unlike ram-air canopies, the T-10 will deploy with or without the steering lines secured, and pulling them, or deploying with one stowed and the other free, doesn't make a lot of difference.

Descent rate under the T-10 is higher than the T-11, despite being a larger canopy, and the T-10 tends to "breathe" more, and has more pendulous action; swinging.

I always found that I landed like a sack of potatoes. My PLF skills suck, a truth I've proven and re-established many times over. I've actually stood up the T-10 a time or two, and have stood up the paracommander (PC), too.

Many years ago, once in a while, we demonstrated "trash packing" the T-10 by stuffing it in a garbage bag and using that as the deployment bag. They still opened.

So far as opening out of freefall, anyone who has used a round reserve, especially some of the smaller 26' navy conicals or lo-po's, knows how uncomfortable/painful they can be at terminal velocity. Especially if a leg strap wasn't cinched tight...

Ran this past a Green Beret friend of mine...

This is what your standard HALO/Freefall parachute looks like:


The reserve chute for said rig looks similar, but smaller (kinda like this):


He thinks this guys main fouled, he tried fix it, couldn't - then cut away and deployed his reserve.
Normally you can steer and land the reserve like normal, but not under a full kit.
He thinks he ran out of altitude to cut his gear away and sank like a rock.

There are NOT the type of parachutes that would be involved in a HALO jump. These are the old and new style static line rigs:

Even 70-100 lbs heavier, you don't fall vertically or at that velocity under the reserve.

You might, if the reserve wasn't open or deployed properly, or was fouled with the main canopy. Ball of garbage. Hung slider. Cell closures. Horseshoe malfunction with reserve fired through. A number of different malfunctions could produce something similar, from a bag-locked main and resere deployment into the bag lock to wrapped canopies, and it is possible to pack a malfunction.