KayBeeEff,
Parachutes? Finished with them after hurling myself out of the Beaver a few times over Cyprus in 1975 - my insurance company has no loading for aircrew but refuses to allow parrot-shooting.
Spent a very pleasant couple of hours last week flying the people that use them up to 10,000 feet over Borneo and watching them plummet from my fully-serviceable 212. The weather up there was a cool, balmy 28 degrees...
Gem,
Your service may have invited some Spam over to show you how to start off, but once it got serious you did the right thing and handed it over to the professionals...
See you at Helitech, maybe