Jumping from a B17

[robcap]

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Would be nice to do sometime.

[Jagdflieger]

Oh yeah! I'd love to have a B-17 listed in my jump log.

[arfyhun]

A brilliant music. A shame it was spoilt by mindless video, as seems the norm these days.....

Graham.

[luckydog]

Just stick with your knitting Graham.....everything will be just fine.

[stansdds]

I've flown on Nine-O-Nine, no way I'd jump out of her unless the wing was on fire.

[TeaSea]

We were trying to get a Dakota over here to jump Static Line as a leased platform last year (TICO Belle out of Titusville).

You'd appreciate Jadflieger, that the unit I work for uses USASOC's SOP for Airborne Ops (we share parachutes, riggers, and support with USSOCOM and SOCCENT). The whole thing got held up because apparently USASOC is reviewing the procedures for the C-47 and that left us out in the cold.

Kind of ironic that you can't jump the original jump platform for all U.S. Airborne forces.

Obviously being a civilian now I can't jump military anything, but I was looking forward to flying around in it. Unfortunately I was never given the opportunity to jump a C-47 when I was on active duty.

[Jagdflieger]

Man, I know what you mean. When I was at HALO school we were supposed to get a C-47 in for some of the jumps, but it didn't get to Fort Bragg due to mechanical problems. I always wanted to jump the plane that made the Airborne. Some of my friends at SOCEUR got to jump C-47s when they made the jumps for D-Day and Market Garden anniversaries.

My brother, a Smokejumper for the US Forest Service, jumped the C-47 many times back in the 70s before a jump injury put back on the ground for the rest of his career.

By the way, the signature picture below shows my son, second jumper out, at jump school earlier this year. I pinned his "blood wings" on him at Eubanks Field on graduation day.

[kilo delta]

Pretty novel way to jump from a B-17....must be where the name "meat-bomb" originates from!

[stansdds]

It's not really a novel way to bail out of a B-17. WW II crews would bail out through the bomb bay as it was a big opening and well away from the props as well as the vertical and horizontal stabilizers.

[AckAck]

I was thinking that instead of jumping out, they ought to stack jumpers laying down on the bomb racks, open the bay doors and release them in a stick... You could get more than just three jumpers that way - release 14 of them at once or something.