Airborne

For a total change of pace, here are some videos of paratroops exiting aircraft.

In the first video, left, they are clearly not doing it properly.  The video speaks for itself, but it must be noted that these are likely students. The number of bad exits is simply too high to make this anything other than a training drop at comparatively high altitude.

Your humble e-scribbler is far from an expert on these things, but somehow it certainly doesn’t seem correct procedure to sit on the door and scoot out until the slipstream rips you off into the air.

By the way, the gigantic numbers on the helmets in the freeze for this pretty much confirms they are students.

Before anyone can make this out to be a problem with American, at right is a video of an extremely well-trained group of American paratroops exiting the aircraft cleanly. 

The difference between the soldiers in the first video and in this one at right should be obvious even to the untrained eye.

The second video seems to be from upwards of 20 years ago, as well.  That might also make a bit of a difference and some of you will notice the huge variation in the amount of kit each soldier is carrying in the first video compared to the second one.

That’s all the same, though as operational jumps may involve carrying seemingly absurd amounts of equipment strapped to each soldier.

And when you’ve done with those, take a gander at some British soldiers doing a tactical altitude jump (500 feet or thereabouts). It’s wild footage and the language is a wee bit salty.

This video gives an idea of what the individual soldiers experiences – at least visually – as he or she falls to Earth.