Yes Mr Aviator, agree that the balloon jump was far more frightening than the aircraft jumps! In the aircraft you might be in the middle of a stick and just following everyone else out the door, it's much harder to grasp what's going on. In the balloon of course you get winched up from the ground, it's really quiet, and it's really quite close to the ground! They don't use that anymore, I think the first jump is from a light aircraft. I got much more used to the balloon as I volunteered to stay on after my course in order to qualify a couple of APJIs (Army Parachute Jump Instructor) who needed to despatch a certain number of people to qualify, so I did quite a few balloon jumps in a couple of days.