Originally Posted by Ex_Pompadour

When I joined in the early 80's the story was that there had been a run of incidents with No1 Port's PX5 parachute not opening. We were jumping PX4 on aircraft and PX5 on balloons so it wasn't told as a wind-up.

I think that the toggles had been closed by some kind of rivet and you couldn't pull them.

I seem to remember that the toggles were wired across so there was no chance of them being pulled at anytime. The story I heard was that somebody released the toggles in mid air because they thought it was a free fall rig, maybe utter tosh though!

Some capewells had a wire ring-pull beneath the dust cover. Can't believe they'd be wired across to prevent activation.
Other designs had a fingerthumb sqeeze & pull thing. But again, you had to first flip the cover off.

Originally Posted by Trotsky

Speaking from the vast experience of having done the school boy parachute course in 198 er, er, er a few years ago I just wondered why did the bother with balloon jumps, it seems to be quite alot different to jumping from a moving aircraft and I have heard that even experienced parachutists were known to refuse

I did the same, through my school CCF, also back in 198*cough*. A 1 1/2 day course and then a static line jump from an Islander (?). I remember arriving on the Saturday morning at Weston and seeing the balloon up, still looking frighteningly close to the ground. I think that was the scariest moment of the whole thing as I assumed, wrongly, that we would have to do a training jump from there before being allowed to exit an aeroplane

The Capewell with the ring pull was known as the one and half shot Capewell, it was a bit faster than the one with the diametrically opposed plungers. There was even a one shot Capewell, just open the cover and goodbye canopy. Never did like that idea.

out of interest why isn't the balloon reintroduced? with the state of the C130 frames at the moment we could keep parachuting competencies somewhat in date. the mod still have the winches, so i'm sure the set up costs would be nowhere near as expensive, although this is the MOD

Originally Posted by gary442654

Some capewells had a wire ring-pull beneath the dust cover. Can't believe they'd be wired across to prevent activation.
Other designs had a fingerthumb sqeeze & pull thing. But again, you had to first flip the cover off.

I take it that you've never seen the SSL harness. It wasn't a 'Capewell' although the design of the 'Canopy Release Mechanism' had a similar end effect of releasing the canopy from the shoulder attachments. It was a GQ design as the 'Capewell' was copyrighted to ?

Originally Posted by hantsbloke

I seem to remember that the toggles were wired across so there was no chance of them being pulled at anytime. The story I heard was that somebody released the toggles in mid air because they thought it was a free fall rig, maybe utter tosh though!

Err............. no !!

Originally Posted by DAKOTA_STAB

out of interest why isn't the balloon reintroduced? with the state of the C130 frames at the moment we could keep parachuting competencies somewhat in date. the mod still have the winches, so i'm sure the set up costs would be nowhere near as expensive, although this is the MOD

Skyvan is cheaper, and as Alec Loma said better for training than a balloon because you have a slipstream to contend with

Originally Posted by Drlligaf

The Capewell with the ring pull was known as the one and half shot Capewell, it was a bit faster than the one with the diametrically opposed plungers. There was even a one shot Capewell, just open the cover and goodbye canopy. Never did like that idea.

There were three designs of this item - '2 Shot' '1 and a half shot' 'Single Shot' all eventually superceded by the revolutionary design of 'The Three Ring Circus'.

Originally Posted by DAKOTA_STAB

out of interest why isn't the balloon reintroduced? with the state of the C130 frames at the moment we could keep parachuting competencies somewhat in date. the mod still have the winches, so i'm sure the set up costs would be nowhere near as expensive, although this is the MOD

Isnt the Skyvan still being used? Was a better option as far as I was concerned . At least A/C drills were same as C130 jumps. Baloons jumps provided a host of very good NAAFI bar stories though!

When I did BPC everyone did their first balloon jump fine. Was when they said we've got enough chutes for a second one that we had IIRC two refusals. Seem to remember the second one being trainee PJI's who perhaps could have give the blokes a quick "OK deep breath mate....GO!"

Bloody cold blooded procedure in my opinion but then I never did one again after BPC!!