Originally Posted by
chevvron
I last saw one of those at Queens Parade, Aldershot in about 1995.<br />The jumpmaster often used his boot to 'assist' the para in his first jump; if you stood at the edge of Queens Parade you could clearly hear them screaming as they exited the cage because they were only jumping from 800ft agl and the main parachute took so long to deploy you might not have time to use the reserve.<br />A new contracter later in the year used Short Skyvans operating in/out of Farnborough dropping at the already existing Hankley Common DZ. There were plans to re-develop the grass strip at Gypsy Hollow, Longmoor in order to shorten the transit time between the takeoff point and the DZ (I saw the plans) but this was overtaken when Nos 1 and 3 Paras moved to Colchester instead.
<br /><br />Author and ex Gurkha officer John Masters tells a marvellous story of a Gurkha unit being asked to volunteer for Para. No volunteers.<br />"How high" they wanted to know.<br />Definitely no volunteers.<br />"But my dear old Gurkhas, the parachutes always work"<br />"Ah, PARACHUTES!"<br />At which they all volunteered.<br />Digression but definitely aviation of a sort.