Actually, the 130 and 141 LOADMASTERS I have known were even more of an
inspiration to wear a parachute than the mechanics... I only got to
jump a C5 once, and it was miserable. Well, the the jump was nice, but
the accomidations sucked. They had us in full gear, with weapons, and
then flew us around for a while so the pilot could get his hours. I
used to hate reserve pilots, the only time I ever witnessed someone
dying on a parachute drop was the fault of a pilot, not the parachute.
[flew through a stick of jumpers.]
On a positive note, I was a Parachute Rigger while I was in, so I feel
the same about 'chutes as you do about those oversized one-way taxis...
;-) My job was actually heavy drop, and specifically, my section had
an unblemished record of burning in 7 road graders in a row... [releases
kept failing] the FScking things were just too damn long and
unbalanced. Deuce and a halfs, Sheridans and endloaders all went fine,
we even gropped a few SEE's. We did burn in a Sheridan in Panama, but
because there was shooting going on, they never really did any
investigation [to my knowledge].
Ray Irons wrote:
> (me banging head slowly on wall) The planes I worked
> on didn't have parachutes for the crew. At least not
> on a regular basis. Only when they were scheduled to
> fly into a hazardous COMBAT zone. Next time you go up
> in one of those fine Air Force transports, you know
> like the C-130 Hercules, C-141 Starlifter, or the C-5
> Galaxy, ask the load master if they or any member of
> the crew have parachutes. If they say no, I
> respectfully request you leave yours on the ground
> until you can be safely re-united with it. See?
> Staying with a perfectly good flyable aircraft DOES
> make sense!
>
> Ray
>
> --- Barry Oliver <barrysuperhawk@insightbb.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Nothing personal, but having met many aircraft
>>mechainics, I refuse to
>>get into an Airforce plane without a parachute. Dem
>>things are
>>hazardous... You wear a seatbelt in a car, right?
>>You wear a helmet
>>on a motorcycle, right? If the PILOT has a
>>parachute, I damn skippy
>>need one too.
>>
>
>
> .
> .
> .------------------------------------------------------------------.
> | Make your plans NOW to attend the National DML Meet in Colorado! |
> | Date: July 15-23, 2006 - More info: http://meet.dakota-truck.net |
> `------------------------------------------------------------------'
>
.
.
.------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Make your plans NOW to attend the National DML Meet in Colorado! |
| Date: July 15-23, 2006 - More info: http://meet.dakota-truck.net |
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