West Point Parachute Team - It's the opportunity Thomas Runds, a cadet of the class of 2019, has been waiting for for the past decade and a half. Standing at the door of a helicopter 4,000 feet above Michi Stadium, it was his job to deliver the game ball at the start of the West Point football game between Hawaii and Hawaii.
He entered the US Military Academy with no skydiving experience, but made 520 jumps in just three years as a member of the West Point Parachute Team.
West Point Parachute Team
This jump is different. Watching the third- and fifth-grade parachute team jump at soccer games inspired him to join the team in the first place. But now, it's finally time to jump into it.
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"It was one of the best experiences I've ever had, getting the crowd going and hitting the floor," Rounds said of jumping onto the field. "It's very quiet upstairs and when you walk into the stadium you hear the crowd and your heart starts racing. It's a great feeling when you finally get on the field. You don't get a chance like this all the years you've been working."
The West Point parachute team currently consists of 22 cadets who perform demonstration jumps at events such as home football games. The team practices during the week by jumping from a helicopter to a flat at West Point. On Sundays, they travel about an hour from West Point and practice aerial skills by jumping from planes 13,000 feet above the ground.
"During Beast, I saw a skydiving team when I was on the plains and I wanted to be a part of it," said Cadet Dion Perrinon, Class of 2020. "We were cleaning the guns, and after the lesson, the jumpers came out, punished the pilot, went up, jumped out of the helicopter, landed, packed, came back, punished the pilot and did it again." It's part of what you had to do. '
"Jump off the plane first, then shoot the pilot and jump off the plane, seeing as the class finally gets back to what they've been doing for years."
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Interviews before the team took their first jump on spring break. They undergo an extensive testing period, including reliability and wind tunnel testing.
Less than a year into his team's second year after receiving his license, he was allowed to jump for the first time. The hard work paid off for the 2021 cadets on the team who took their first straight jump during Tuesday's practice.
"The first time I saw them was when they came in for physical training," said Sgt. said Parachute Squad NCOIC 1st Class Ian McGlynn. "They're young and full of energy, excited when they get on a plane for the first time, and always when it's real that they're going. You can see through the door two miles above the ground. What do I do to get each jumper's nerves out of their faces?"
After learning how to jump, team members can start racing. Teams compete in two-jump double jumps at the same time, and spend their free time working together to create aerial choreography.
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Team members also compete in groups of four and six to create a larger formation as a team.
McGlynn said paratroopers become proficient in two and a half years, while civilian jumps typically take 10 to 15 years. They do this through detailed preparation and how often they do it. Round estimated he could high jump 20 times a week in good weather as a freshman.
"The first time you do it, it's very confusing," he said of the six-way tournament. "Getting out the door, you're going over each other. From drills and drills and ground drills, everybody gets to the point where they know what to do at their place before we put anything in the sky. We've been practicing six ways for two years now, so we know what to do at our place. we know for sure."
The most advanced members of the group participate in vertical formation competitions. The other members of the group pressed down on their stomachs while building a raft. These beetles build structures by changing their axes while standing or sitting, or vice versa.
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"It takes a long time to learn," McGlynn said of vertical flight. "Usually it's very easy to learn how to avoid an airplane, but it takes time and learning how to fly in the air where the axis changes and the wind feels different and weird."
Team members can also compete in specific subjects. According to classical precision; They use a large canopy to control their landing in order to land directly on a small target. In sports precision; They use a small spot to land on a dinner plate-sized target.
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