Re: A few more questions


"Jerry K." <skycam@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:gke1j416fqrjulq8qsr404r866i11rbc0p@xxxxxxxxxx
I'm thinking tho that jumping might be safer than it looks. Just think
about all those solders in WW2 that jumped. I read once that in WW2 the
parachutes nearly always opened, it was some other reason they died - bad
landing or something. But it was rarely the chute malfunctioning.

Malfunctions happened. Some dealt with it successfully while others
couldn't or didn't Some soldiers landed bad. Some only broke ankles
and others broke their necks. Sport parachuting is way the *** more
forgiving then military. Airborne were carrying shitloads of gear,
opening very low to the ground, and landing under very minimally
steerable round parachutes. Plus there was lots of people on the
ground wanting to kill them. Sport parachuting is a walk in the park
comparatively.



I asked about how safe parachutes were on a ww2 news group a few years ago.
Here are some of the replies I got and my question:

------------------------------------

"After hearing about the lady falling to her death in Yosemite
National Park because of her parachute, that got me to wondering. How
reliable were the parachutes during WW2? "

How reliable were the parachutes during WW2?

****

"I personally did over a hundred drops of parachutists behind the lines
and there was never a single casualty from a faulty parachute. And
indeed, when the squadron had to drop a dead body on a clandestine stunt
it was a major problem to work out a convincing drop that would indicate
that partachute-failure had been the cause of his death. The research
involved, and how the problem was eventually solved, are described in my
MOONLIGHT WAR. The only fatality of parachutists in that squadron was on
a pre-operation test drop when gtwo Gurkhas went out too cloxse
together, their parachutes tangled, and both were killed.
In England, earlier, when operating out of Bircham Newton, I remember
being told of a pilot from some squadron there in 1940 whoi had bailed
out of a flask-damaged aircraft and had a parachute failure (also
flak-damaged?) but he crashed through some trees and survivied - I can't
recall in what state."

****
"I would judge them as very reliable. Quite a number of AVG Flying
Tigers had occasion to bail out, and those who managed to get free of
the plane were successful--and these were Chinese-packed chutes, whose
ideograms the Americans quipped were supposed to express the old joke
about, "If it doesn't open, bring it back and we'll give you another."

Consider also that the Americans, British, and to a lesser extent
Germans and Japanese used airborne troops to take defended positions,
often to the extent of hundreds and even thousands of parachutists.
The failure rate must have been miniscule.


Gliders, it would seem, were much more dangerous. They flew like
bricks and their pilots typically had seven hours of training in a
modified Piper Cub. "

*****

The American T=7 was very reliable .The failure in training jumps was in the
area of one in 16000.With the reserve most of the failures were not fatal.In
combat the danger wasn't so much in parachute failure but other causes.The
main German parachute (I don't remember the model number) was better as the
canopy was shaped like the T-10 which replaced the T=7.

****

The parachutes themselves were very reliable. There are very few
accounts of the chutes themselves failing (i.e. the chute coming
apart, or the harness breaking free, etc...). Most accidents and fatalities
during a jump are due to human error. The chute is packed wrong and
thus does not open properly (which is appearently what happened to
that poor woman). The jumper fails to exit the aircraft properly, which
also
leads to improper openings or collisions with the aircraft. Midair
collisions
with other jumpers. And of course not landing correctly ("keep your feet
and knees together, airborne!"). Many, many other things can go wrong
in a jump but few are the chutes fault.



****

For the U.S. parachute troops, each newer model of chute was more reliable
than
the last. The T-4 of 1940 vintage was the first USAAF type with a 28-foot
canopy -- enough to support a combat-loaded infantryman, rather than a
lighter
aircrewman. Even so, the tech spec was focused on avoiding FATALITIES to
the
user on landing -- different from landing UNINJURED, hence while the T-4
was
standard (1940-1941), the paras carried little arms and equipment on their
bodies and rifles, SMGs and heavier went into eqpt bundles. The T-5 design
drew
on British experience, as was BETTER (but not GREAT), so the paras began
carrying more and more gear on their bodies...that is, any advantage in
safety
or comfortbale/soft landing gained was quickly traded away! There were two
major features of the Brit Type X chute NOT copied in 1942: the
quick-release
box and the sleeve around the canopy. Once a troop was IN the T-5 harness,
he
had to un-do 4 (IIRC?) buckles to get OUT; the Brits had the "box" on the
chest, with which the wearer just turned the "boss" and pulled out the
wishbone
to get the whole harness to pop aapart and drop off. The US chutes (ALL,
USAAF
and USN, aircrew types) used a small pilot chute that would catch the
breeze
and drag the main canopy and riser lines out of the pack; the Brit approach
was
to tuck the canopy into a sleeve or bag, with no pilot chute. This
resulted in
a (usually) softer opening (less shock), hence a bit safer. (Keep in mind
the
Brits, until 1945 used no RESERVEs.)

In combat jumps, the technical "safety" of any of the usual WWII chutes
depended more on the conditions of the jump -- too fast, too high, too low,
poor body position on exit (like when being knocked around by flak, or
slipping
on vomit), too little interval between jumpers. Then, once away from the
plane
and floating earthward, the aforementioned variables would "crowd the sky"
and
the jumpers would slam into each other body-to-body, or body-to-canopy or
body-to-risers. And equipment would break away and plummet like bombs --
slicing through canopies and slamming into bodies. US and Brit chutes
used in
WWII combat were only slightly steerable -- even if the jumper was calm
enough
to concentrate on "traffic" around him and carefully follow the prescribed
steering drills.





















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