USAF PJs set HALO record
Originally Posted by the linked article
A team of skydivers led by a 73-year-old private astronaut have set a record by jumping from a balloon 38,000 feet in the air and successfully executing a dangerous military dive.
Larry Connor, who in 2022 was among the crew members on the first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, was part of the Alpha 5 team that set the new mark for the highest HALO (high altitude, low open) formation skydive on Thursday.
In the skies over New Mexico, Connor and four U.S. Air Force specialists leapt from the balloon and linked arms while freefalling at speeds that reached 189 miles per hour before separating and deploying their parachutes when 4,000 feet above the ground.
Larry Connor, who in 2022 was among the crew members on the first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, was part of the Alpha 5 team that set the new mark for the highest HALO (high altitude, low open) formation skydive on Thursday.
In the skies over New Mexico, Connor and four U.S. Air Force specialists leapt from the balloon and linked arms while freefalling at speeds that reached 189 miles per hour before separating and deploying their parachutes when 4,000 feet above the ground.
In the video I watched....it appeared one of the jumpers could have been a SEAL....as he was kicking his legs like a Frog before he settled down!
Congratulations to the Jumpers and other folks who made it happen.....well done!
Congratulations to the Jumpers and other folks who made it happen.....well done!
Health warning: I can't remember where I read this, so it's also possibly a figment of Tom Clancy's imagination!
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I thought one advantage was that you could deploy undetected from something that looks on radar like an airliner (or at worst an overflying transport), and then open your parachute at a sufficiently low altitude to be over the horizon of your adversary's radar. Another variant I read about somewhere was using a parachute with a relatively decent glide (ie more like a paraglider) and opening very high, to reach a point far away from the track of your aircraft.
Health warning: I can't remember where I read this, so it's also possibly a figment of Tom Clancy's imagination!
Health warning: I can't remember where I read this, so it's also possibly a figment of Tom Clancy's imagination!
Of course it is in use. We used to support the Singapore Army when they came to Oz to practice this, back in the 90s.
The soldiers would do the HALO thing, and they also had remote-control steerable chutes for loads (simulating a weapon supply) where the loads were dropped a long way from the target and they glided to the destination. We would then go looking for the loads that didn't respond to the radio commands and wandered away.
The soldiers would do the HALO thing, and they also had remote-control steerable chutes for loads (simulating a weapon supply) where the loads were dropped a long way from the target and they glided to the destination. We would then go looking for the loads that didn't respond to the radio commands and wandered away.
[...]what operational advantages does such a scheme offer to military parachutists?
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Indeed - I vividly recall suffering, fortunately only figuratively, from a sharp attack of ingrowing toenails when staffing the recommendation for a very high (pun not intended....) award for an action following a jump with the parachute deploying at less than half the height of the surrounding mountains - in a very narrow valley - at night....
Jack
Jack
it appeared one of the jumpers could have been a SEAL....as he was kicking his legs like a Frog
Beagle, get over yourself. A lot of us have worked with those folks.
To be clear, and perhaps I should have been less terse in my question ... what with the US shooting down high altitude balloons recently ... what advantage does HALO from a high altitude balloon offer?
To be clear, and perhaps I should have been less terse in my question ... what with the US shooting down high altitude balloons recently ... what advantage does HALO from a high altitude balloon offer?
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Beagle, get over yourself. A lot of us have worked with those folks.
To be clear, and perhaps I should have been less terse in my question ... what with the US shooting down high altitude balloons recently ... what advantage does HALO from a high altitude balloon offer?
To be clear, and perhaps I should have been less terse in my question ... what with the US shooting down high altitude balloons recently ... what advantage does HALO from a high altitude balloon offer?
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In the video I watched....it appeared one of the jumpers could have been a SEAL....as he was kicking his legs like a Frog before he settled down!
Congratulations to the Jumpers and other folks who made it happen.....well done!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS_37CyNA1A
Congratulations to the Jumpers and other folks who made it happen.....well done!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS_37CyNA1A
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If you can google it then it's not lim dis. Too much crap has made its way onto wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-a...ry_parachuting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-a...ry_parachuting
One night I was camping out at a desert airfield that was visited around midnight by a couple of C-130 loads of military jumpers. It would have been a covert drop except that every jumper left their slider flapping in the wind and you could hear them all coming from a mile away. (If sport jumpers are smart enough to secure their sliders why don't military jumpers?)
The "no lights" C-130 landings and departures were impressive. Only a green glow from the flight decks.
The "no lights" C-130 landings and departures were impressive. Only a green glow from the flight decks.
Possibly just the ability to get higher in order to set a record?
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Four grand isn't exactly what you'd call "low" though
mind you, I'm assuming this was simply bad reporting, given it also said
mind you, I'm assuming this was simply bad reporting, given it also said
and linked arms while freefalling
If you can google it then it's not lim dis. Too much crap has made its way onto wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-a...ry_parachuting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-a...ry_parachuting