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Being Our Own Worst Enemy


Vlad

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Pro-gun, pro-sport, pro-hunting, pro-ipsc, pro-idpa, pro-whatever you happen to approve of, we should always make sure that when we back up our position we use facts not best wishes. We accuse the opponents of doing this, and we should always make sure that we don't do it ourselves.

Reading a link from a different thread I ran across this gem:

Just today, I saw a 75-year-young man named Bob, with over 10,000 HALO parachute jumps, climb up a two-story ladder and clear a tactical house.

Folks, I call BS. 10,000 jumps means one jump a day for 27.4 years, 365 days a year, no weekends, no holidays. The first HALO jumps started being used around 1965 as far as I can tell, which means Bob was 35 at the time. One jump a day, until he turned 62? Maybe he had more then one jump a day here and there but the HA part of HALO means he couldn't jump all that many times a day. And after 10,000 jumps he still had knees to climb that ladder with?

The author may have had a point in the article this was found in, but my eyes glazed over really fast when I saw this kind of stuff.

Please note that this post is not an attempt to flame the fires from a different closed thread, its purpose it to encourge people to not inflate numbers to support their cause, no matter how good of a cause it may be.

Edited by Vlad
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sorry buddy but at the sport club @ Ft Campbell with your own rig it was not uncommon to get 10 - 12 jumps in a weekend and the guy's from 5th Group said in halo school it was 7 - 10 jumps a day because they would land and pick up a new rig and get back on the aircraft

as to the bad knees landing with a square chute is like stepping off a curb when done right

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I am with Vlad on this one and have to call BS....kind of like listening to some old codger talking about breaking 200mph in an open bodied roadster at the Salt Flats, back in the 60's...I don';t think so..

How many guys in the world claim to have 10 jumps of any kind? Not many I'll betch'a and I will also betch'a that none of them are running up any ladders to do a house clearing...double BS...

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There is a difference between sport jumps and HALO jumps. We are not talking about a couple of 1000's feet up. The HA part means high altitude, we are talking 26000ft here. Plus breathing gear, plus refilling the said breathing gear. Also as far as I can tell until very recently HALO was the realm of the military alone as the civilian sport market didn't have the planes and gear. What military purpose could have been found for droping the same guy from high places 10000 times?

Also, unless I'm mistaken, HALO landings are not the gentle affairs of modern sport chute, not to mention the frostbite enducing tempertatures for the better part of the drop.

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Any time a military flight drops personnel or cargo at altitudes above 18,000 feet, specially trained aerospace physiology technician, nicknamed PTs, must fly on board. [...snip...]

In 1995, PTs flew 550 sorties aboard aircraft, including the C-17, C-130, C-141, C-5 and others. They launched from 114 locales, including Pakistan, Australia, Indonesia, Korea, Italy and airfields throughout the United States.

If somebody were jumping on each and every one of those 550 flights, it'd only take 20 years, assuming a constant flight rate.

I can believe 10K jumps, but not 10K HALO jumps..

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11b,

Consider the source for the article. Clint Smith will usually say whatever he has to in order to make his point. Even when you are paying him for a class he is very condescending and his way is the only way. Twice in the class I took he contradicted an earlier statement simply to "WIN" what he perceived to a hostile attack when it was only an inquiry for clarification.

The claim of 10k HALO jumps is a little hard to swallow however Mr. Smith inflating the truth 10x is not so hard for me.

Edited by smokshwn
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