Navy SEALs battling a frightening rise in parachute deaths

[JohnyCrawford 0]

How many skydives would you recommend student skydivers have before doing night RW jumps, wearing 100 lbs of gear, tandem, night vision goggles, and oxygen from 20,000 feet?

How about 32?

News: http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/navy-seals-green-berets-delta-force-army-rangers-parachute-deaths

[Anachronist 2]

I've seen the military fall well behind the training curve in scuba too. (Personal experience)

The attitude is completely different, our "sport(s)" is just a means to an end for them. They are just looking for "good enough to get to where they need to go so they can do their real job."

They also pile on as much as conceivably possible to check off a proficiency slot as quickly as possible without any emphasis on "mastery." And to some degree it makes sense, most will only serve a handful of years, and years is what it takes to achieve mastery.

I would imagine they have a piss poor safety record for hours flown on aircraft too if you were to compare it to civilian/commercial operations. But again, it makes sense to some degree.

Not only are they pressured to do more in less time, they are doing more dangerous and complicated activities.

[RiggerLee 61]

They are actually trying to do some thing about this. As it says, there are several problems. There is simply more of this activity going on. These groups are expanding. A lot of them are spending a lot of time over seas. They are not always able to maintain currency in these skills.

People are aware of the problem and there is progress. They have come to the realization that these people need to become better jumpers. There is a program for... let's call it continuing education, at least officially. Basically they send a group of them out to a drop zone for coaching. They do HAHO and HALO jumps with gear and duffels but they also learn basic fourway jumping ordinary rigs just to become better flyers. It can actually be a little bit humballing for them when they realize how much room they have to improve. It's equal parts training and recreation. And oddly they never seem to do any of this on base. It seems that they always have to travel some where to find the facilities they need. Like, Austen. Nice little drop zone north of town. Strangely the only place they seemed to be able to find hotel rooms was down on fifth street. I suspect the whole mission started with some kind of written operational order detailing primary and secondary targets of all the bars they wanted to practice there infiltration skill on each night.

To some degree it's a vacation. Take a group that has just transferred
back and send them some place to recreate and blow off steam. But they also get to train. Regain currency. And pick up some new skills. It's a good step towards making them into more competent skydivers and better able to handle some of the border line insane jumps that they do. And some of it is pretty crazy, and I'm saying that. I've been known to do some pretty stupid things my self. But these guys, if they were at a normal drop zone would probable still be on student status.

Lee

Lee
lee@velocitysportswear.com
www.velocitysportswear.com

[Anachronist 2]

Yeah, apparently the reason for using civi drop zones is that jumping out of military aircraft is a bureaucratic nightmare, and multiple jumps in a day? lol, good luck.

That's just what I've been told.

[BartsDaddy 7]

No you all just expect unlimited training. That is Not the case in the millitary.
It has been many years since I was in butt training time was costly and not very common.
I taught my CPO things he did not know about automated boiler controls.
Not unheard of, that is if his last command was not automated boiler control school that he was a instructor at.
The millitary has very good instructional programs but unfortunately they rely on output rather then learning. I saw that first hand too many times.

Handguns are only used to fight your way to a good rifle

[riggerrob 643]

The Canadian Army jump out of civilian airplanes because they cost a fraction of the cost of flying C-130 or C-17 military transports.

Around the turn of the century, Canadian Search and Rescue Technicians switched to CSPA's training methods so that they could do refresher training out of a Cessna 182 instead of Buffalos. They hire CSPA Course Conductors to bring CSAR School instructors up to date on modern skydiving instructional methods.

[Phil1111 1,149]

Anachronist

I've seen the military fall well behind the training curve in scuba too. (Personal experience)

The attitude is completely different, our "sport(s)" is just a means to an end for them. They are just looking for "good enough to get to where they need to go so they can do their real job."

They also pile on as much as conceivably possible to check off a proficiency slot as quickly as possible without any emphasis on "mastery." And to some degree it makes sense, most will only serve a handful of years, and years is what it takes to achieve mastery.

I would imagine they have a piss poor safety record for hours flown on aircraft too if you were to compare it to civilian/commercial operations. But again, it makes sense to some degree.

Not only are they pressured to do more in less time, they are doing more dangerous and complicated activities.

Lack of money?

[Anachronist 2]

No, more like guys who have been in 30+ years and had little to no continuing education still calling the shots like it is 1970.

[riggerrob 643]

A narrowly-focussed program can prepare military students for complex jumps hundreds of jumps earlier than civilians who just wander around the sky having fun.
Rumour has it that Alaskan Air National Guard para-rescue specialists are jumping tandem bundles with only 300 jumps! In many respects, jumping bundles is simpler than jumping with flailing, screaming humans.
The other issue is that military jumping includes multiple layers of redundant gear checks: pre-dressing, assistance while dressing, pre-boarding, pre-exit, etc.
Once those drills are burned into medium-length memory, they are very difficult to change. On the one hand, military drills build confidence. Sometimes that confidence continues building into arrogance. Arrogance sometimes builds into over-confidence and sometimes over-confidence kills.
Finally, intense training methods burn skills into the brain so deeply that they can become impossible to change. Which is why most armies retire Chiefs after 20 or 30 years because it is impossible to change their ways.

[Anachronist 2]

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. And is the whole "means to an end" thing. The whole balance of "do what we know works, because this is a national security issue after all" vs. "try and innovate but risk failure (however that may be defined)" is a tricky bugger, I do not envy the people who come up with the SOPs. A much more complicated and expensive example would be the V22, but "innovation" came at a very steep price in lives and material/$.

[Croc 0]

Didn't the Air Force Academy have a controversial jump program, where a cadet would make his or her first jump as a free fall jump without an instructor? Do they still do that?

"Here's a good specimen of my own wisdom. Something is so, except when it isn't so."

Charles Fort, commenting on the many contradictions of astronomy

[TampaPete 52]

I don't think it has been controversial. The training is very intense. EP's are drilled in. There have been malfunctions handled correctly (see youtube). Haven't heard of any major injuries.

[mjosparky 4]

I worked for Joe Crotwell's company AERO. Most of are contracts were Government test programs. We could fly a
King Air to YPG with a pilot and at least two crew members. We would do as many as 4 lifts a day with 4 to 6 drops per lift, at altitudes from 500 agl to 25,000 agl. we would provide everything. They would pay for rooms and meals sometimes for 3 or 4 days. They paid up from chock to chock. And it was cheaper than using military personal and planes.

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[ryoder 1,590]

Croc

Didn't the Air Force Academy have a controversial jump program, where a cadet would make his or her first jump as a free fall jump without an instructor? Do they still do that?

See post #19 from "tdog": http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=3906441#3906441

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[pms07 3]

Croc

Didn't the Air Force Academy have a controversial jump program, where a cadet would make his or her first jump as a free fall jump without an instructor? Do they still do that?

I don't think its been controversial for at least 35 or 40 years. And yes, they still do that. The program consists of 5 freefall jumps with an ~10 second delay. The gear is complimentary, the ground training is intensive compared to any sport application, and each jump is carefully observed and evaluated by an instructor to insure satisfactory performance. Its run as a military training program, not sport or entertainment.

Don't try to equate military freefall programs with what we do in the sport. They are not the same in spite of the fact that there are similarities sometimes in gear and techniques...

[funkhugh 0]

Croc

Didn't the Air Force Academy have a controversial jump program, where a cadet would make his or her first jump as a free fall jump without an instructor? Do they still do that?

Yes we still do, and with great success. Very intense ground training followed by 5 solo freefall skydives from 4500ft. We use telesis ripcord activated rigs with PD 300s. They do great, it's quite a program.

[riggerrob 643]

Does the USAFA still install FXC12000M AADs on main ripcords?

[funkhugh 0]

Yes, FXCs are still used on the mains. Student Cypres on the reserves.

[Anachronist 2]

Ohh FXC main and AAD reserve, I'm intrigued. Could you elaborate? Altitude settings etc?

[funkhugh 0]

Sure. The FXC on the main is set at 2500ft. When exiting from 4500ft they give a 10 second delay before deploying around 3500ft. Some don't get the full 10 seconds before deploying, just depends on the cadet. Even after 40 hours of ground training some pull almost immediately.

[Anachronist 2]

Neat, yeah I don't think I could have accurately counted to 10 my first time out the door.

Ever have FXCs fire?

[funkhugh 0]

I haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure it's happened.

[riggerrob 643]

The skydiving school at Perris Valley, California had a similar set-up until 2,000.
They had FXC12000M installed on their main ripcords. Shortly before 2,000 they also installed Cypres in the reserves.
During one week (early 2,000) I converted all 18 of their student Telesis 1 rigs to (double handle) BOC.

[Croc 0]

Thanks to all who answered my question. The information I had was not at all accurate.

"Here's a good specimen of my own wisdom. Something is so, except when it isn't so."

Charles Fort, commenting on the many contradictions of astronomy