Quote:
Originally posted by NousDefionsDoc
Oh, and just for reference for the new guys. When you go to MFF School, they will give you a class on canopy characteristics, including speed of foward drive. I don't know if they're still using the MT1XX, but the class I got was "The foward drive of the MT1XX is approximately XX miles per hour."
They don't tell you a couple of things. First, when you land with the rucksack, that number is somehow squared. Don't ask me how, but you will be going at least, AT LEAST, Mach 1 when you hit the ground. Second, if you cut away your main, the reserve's forward drive is cubed what the main was and to a power of ten if you have any other problems or cannot avoid landing on the concrete.
They also give you a rate of descent. If you are NOT over the DZ or any other clearing, the rate of descent doubles for every 100 feet you're short to the next clearing. And I have been told that the R of D slows by half and all forward drive stops when you are being shot at from the ground while under canopy.
They also tell you that if you pull the little red thing, there is a device which will "instantaneously" assist in deploying the reserve. The word "instantaneously" is obviously a very relative term. In my experience (HAHO cutaway at about 17k), it takes at least, at least, 7 days for the reserve to deploy.
|
They use the MC-4, which is the same 375 square foot canopy, main and reserve.
The rate of descent and forward drive are also driven by the weight of the jumper, brother NDD, which means that you and I, along with Jerry and Dale, are in a class only exceeded by No Go Rotundo. I guess when you are over the section of woods that stick out into the middle of Sicily DZ, all laws are repealed.
As the instructors say, when you have a parachute malfunction, you have the rest of your life to work it out. I survived a mid-air entanglement over Mackall AAF myself.
Billy L:
Saw your credits at the end of the piece. You are very good at what you do, hermano.
TR
__________________
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
|