Rotor in the Green - May Monthly Extract
Skydiving
...Following the basic electronics course I went on to complete a radar introductory course of four months’ duration. After a total of eighteen months and from a course which commenced with thirty students I came second overall to a former school teacher. This fact loses a lot of its significance, however, when you consider that only eight of us successfully completed the course.
In October 1971 my father advised me that my mother had been diagnosed with leukemia, and at the young age of 47 she was given only two years to live. My mother’s health was influential in my first choice of posting to 3 Base Workshop in the Melbourne suburb of Broadmeadows. I arrived there in November 1971 and settled into the environment alongside many of my mates from Bandiana, repairing radio and test equipment coming in from the field.
I returned to Bandiana in January 1972 to attend a two-month radar equipment course which instructed tradesmen in the maintenance of the AN/KPQ-1 mortar-locating radar. This radar was used by artillery units to locate the source of enemy mortar rounds. By tracking the rounds in flight for a given time the radar computer could extrapolate back down the flight path to determine the location from which the rounds were fired. This information was then in turn used by the artillery to engage the mortar base plates.
Following this I was sent on a three-month civil detachment to Hawker De Havilland (Hawkers) at Bankstown Airport, NSW. Hawkers had the contract for rebuilding the AN/KPQ-1 radar units returning from Vietnam. In the meantime I had been selected for posting to a CMF divisional locating battery in the Melbourne suburb of Brighton. This unit was to receive a fully refurbished radar unit from Hawkers, and I was to be involved with the rebuild of the actual radar I would be working with. My passion for flying was still unsated as evidenced in this letter home in April 1972.
…I started at Hawkers last Monday and although there is not a great deal of work, what I do covers a wide range from working on the electronic side of the equipment, to paint stripping and spray painting.
Of course being at Bankstown Airport I spend most of the day watching the planes. Hawkers rebuild Caribou and Grumman Tracker aeroplanes and Iroquois and Wessex helicopters. They also manufacture the wings and tail sections of the RAAF’s new basic jet trainer, the Macchi.
During this time in Sydney I took up skydiving, and while initial ground training was held in the city of an evening the jumps were conducted on the weekend at the Wilton DZ near Camden. The whole environment was far more relaxed than military parachuting; those involved were there for the pure fun and thrill of skydiving and not because someone was yelling at them to do it.
I made my first jump on 15 April 1972, the first of five static-line jumps on which Dummy Ripcord Pulls (DRPs) were carried out. DRPs entailed having a simulated ripcord device velcroed to the parachute harness, the object being to go through the motions of pulling a simulated ripcord while still having the safety of the static-line to open the parachute. When my instructor was happy I was going to pull the ripcord and not freeze up he sent me for my first free-fall. The hardest part of that jump was sitting in the aircraft as it climbed to height.
The right hand door is removed, causing the slipstream to buffet around inside the aircraft. In spite of the noise my mind is full of thoughts as to what might happen. What if this? What if that? At least with a static-line I knew my parachute was always going to open, but with free-fall my life is literally in my hands. All the time my stomach is churning with butterflies, but I realise that the biggest fear I have to overcome is the fear of backing out.
We’re turning in on jump-run, and it’s my turn. The jumpmaster beckons me over to the door, and I move across slowly on my knees, one hand covering the handle on the reserve parachute strapped to my chest. If that handle is dislodged accidentally the reserve parachute will deploy, and if I am not quick enough to prevent the ’chute being caught in the slipstream I could be pulled out through the side of the aircraft, opening it up like a can opener.
The jumpmaster checks the “spot” then instructs the pilot: “Power off, brakes on.” He motions me out onto the wheel of the Cessna (hence the brakes on), and I gingerly climb out. I am hanging on to the wing strut with both hands; my left foot is on the wheel, and my right is dangling in mid-air. The worst is over. I can’t turn back from here. “Go!”
My heart is racing as I release my grip on the strut and fall away, arching my back to achieve a stable free-fall. I count aloud “one thousand. . .two thousand. . .three thousand.” I bring both hands in, so as not to go unstable, and grab the ripcord just as I had done with the DRPs. Now the moment of truth—I pull the ripcord and wait. After what seems an eternity the parachute opens, and it is time to sit back and enjoy the ride.
I loved the exhilaration of free-fall but it was all over too quickly. I continued with the training, increasing jump height and therefore free-fall time as I progressed. The few seconds of free-fall were a real buzz but I never could get over the anxiety felt on the long haul up to jump run. I completed 30 jumps over the next fifteen months, up to a maximum height of 8,000ft, equivalent to thirty-five seconds of free-fall. When I gave skydiving away, mainly for financial reasons, I had around 10 minutes’ total of free-fall time. I loved every second of it and would do it again tomorrow if circumstances permitted.
