Hognose Flies The Sim -- Parachute Sim, That Is

by Kevin R.C. "Hognose" O'Brien

"You are still grounded," he said. "But, but..." I started, and I noticed that the boss was tapping his collar, calling attention to the delta in rank between us. The reason I call him Boss. I had tried the "it's the Army's fault cause it hasn't scheduled my surgery" tack and the "but the FAA gave me a Class III flight physical despite this untreated injury" approach and had gotten other variants of "no." At some point it would be better to stop aggravating the major.

"Until you get that surgery, you aren't jumping. You can do the simulator."

"The whaaaat? Sir?"

Yep, there's a parachute simulator... a combination of American ingenuity, high-tech, and good sense that enhances training quality and -- something a guy whose last parachute jump led to three months in a cast can really get behind -- reduces training injuries.

So, what the hell: In service of Aero-News I've flown sims of an F-18, an L-39, a 172, and MiG (the only one I wasn't dreadfully behind was the 172, which is what I usually fly in what die-hard sim geeks call "meatworld"). Why not a parachute?

A Few Words on Parachutes

During my time in the Army, the Reserve, and the Guard, many things changed dramatically -- but static-line parachutes weren't one of them. The Army has always had two basic chutes, the round non-steerable T-10 series used for mass D-Day type drops, which is a direct descendant of the chutes used in World War II, and the steerable TU-modified MC-1 series which is used mostly by special operations and reconnaissance forces that jump in smaller elements and need to be able to do a little flying with the canopy.

In the eighties, a new harness finally replaced the World War II vintage T-series with the large chest release that rotated 1/4 turn to unlock (and that had a gnarly habit of snaring one's private parts, turning a jump into an agonizing threat to your posterity). Around the same time, an anti-inversion net made the "Mae West" malfunction as outdated as the movies featuring the buxom actress who gave it its name. In the nineties, the Army adopted zero-porosity fabric, trading a little more oscillation for a slower descent --necessary with the typical paratrooper and combat equipment weighing in at over 350 lb. (Can you say, "oof!"? Contact your Army Recruiter... have they got a job for you!)

One factor that influences parachute performance and that will make sense to pilots is density altitude. And it first became apparent when the Army's 10th Special Forces Group moved from the 150 foot MSL altitude of now-defunct Fort Devens to the higher elevations of Fort Carson, Colorado. They began to injure an unusual number of troops, especially on equipment jumps, and quickly figured out that density altitude -- and pressure altitude -- were factors. The call went out for parachutes that would allow a parachutist and his equipment to descend even slower -- or at least, at a tolerable velocity when jumping at altitude. But there was no budget for new chutes in the lean Clinton years, so designing and testing a new chute was out of the question. The search was limited to chutes already in production and service.

To Be Continued

FMI: www.arng.army.mil