Candle in the Wind

Ministerial Meandering

Candle in the wind

I had the privilege to parachute once; it wasn’t enough.

I had always wanted to fly because in my dreams sometimes I do fly.  It was bad enough for me to join the RAF section of the OTC (Officers Training Corps) or CCF (Combined Cadet Force) as it came to be called in school.  It was more appropriate to be a CCF, as none of us were officers - indeed, we were all Aircraftsmen with one sergeant, I think, and a master who carried the dizzy rank of Flight Lieutenant.

I went to camp in the summer holidays, as we all did - hoping that we’d be sent to a jet base, as jets were only just coming on line for the regular RAF.  But it was not to be.  We were sent to a medium range freighter base on Thorney Island in Hampshire; the only saving grace being that the food was wonderful, plenteous - and thoroughly unhealthy - and that the base had a ground parachute school.

The aircraft were boring in the extreme - Beverleys, Hastings, and Argosies - yawn!

Those of us over 16 (about 5 of us), were allowed to do the parachute ground training, which took place in a hangar equipped with all sorts of cool stuff, where we did the theory first, and then learned how to jump off certain raised platforms and land and roll without breaking our ankles.

Once this had been achieved to the training sergeant’s satisfaction, we graduated to the ‘tower’.  This was a very tall (90 foot) platform at the top of a scaffold that had to be climbed.  From the bottom it looked pretty easy and ought to have been a piece of cake - but when you had climbed to the top of this structure and met with a member of the training staff, proffering you a harness with a satanic grin and manic gleam in his eye - it all seemed rather different and threatening.  And the ground was a long way down there!

The instruction was quite simple; don harness - jump off - roll when you hit the ground - don’t break any bones (heh, heh!).

Having completed Ground School - including stepping off the scaffold without needing a helpful push from the instructor, which would have meant having to do it again, we spent the rest of the camp time waiting for a break in the weather so we could actually jump from an aircraft.  The break never came, and, try as we might to convince our colleagues that it was the weather and not our courage that had failed, we were ridiculed pitilessly.

I learned fast - and joined the Royal Navy when I ‘grew up’.

I did, however, get to have my yearned for parachute jump - for my fortieth birthday present.  I had to go through an attenuated ‘Ground School’ all over again, and then, once more, wait for a sufficiently clement day to give us the opportunity to actually exit the aircraft.

How much simpler it is to push yourself out into the sky and clouds, with the earth miles below, than it is to jump off a 90 foot scaffold from some asylum escapee itching for the chance to ‘help’ you!

My only regret was that we were on static lines (for beginners), which meant that at the end of the 100 foot cord, the attachment to the aircraft snaps and deploys your canopy, all in one go.  That meant the experience of anything like ‘free fall’ was limited to about 2 and a half to 3 seconds, just enough for you to clear the tail plane and be well beneath the aircraft slipstream.

In theory, this was the case, and following the separation of the cord and deployment of the canopy, the plan was that you then float gently to earth, enjoying the sights and smells of the countryside below you, before you make a graceful landing and textbook roll.  That was the theory.

What actually happened was rather more exciting.  We had been warned that there was no guarantee of how our chutes had been packed; that is why - in jump clubs - all who participate pack their own chutes.  Occasionally, (they said) occasionally, a chute doesn’t get packed so well, with the result that when the canopy deploys - it doesn’t.

Mine didn’t.

Now I may not be as smart as some of you who read these meanderings, but even I realized that when I felt the tug of my canopy leave its bag, you are not supposed to go suddenly deaf and blind at the same time.

For the cognoscenti amongst you, I will tell you that your canopy is attached to you by two robust shoulder straps that should separate in an upward ‘V’ shape from your shoulders to open the reassuring mushroom of canvas above your head.

This did not happen.

We had also been equipped with helmets with radio contact to the ground crew, who were watching our descent for safety and to see where we landed.

My shoulder straps had twisted, and so as the canopy was wrenched from its bag on separation from the aircraft, the two shoulder straps crossed behind my head, pushing my helmet forward over my eyes - hence the blindness - and moving the earpieces off my ears and onto the top of my head - hence the deafness and lack of contact with the ground crew.

I was also aware that I was getting in some extra ‘free fall’ time, (which was not scheduled) and so my descent had not been slowed at all, added to which I was spinning round and round like a top - which was also not on the menu that I had selected from.

Fortunately, our ground training had covered this ‘rare’ eventuality, and told us that if we found ourselves emulating a drill bit on high speed, the correct thing to do was to ‘kick out the twists’.  Believe me when I tell you that I was kicking - like a child having a hissy fit!

One of the problems of taking your first jumps is that the aircraft doesn’t go very high - only just over half a mile - which means that the ground comes up to meet you fairly rapidly.  In the course of my aerial antics I was aware that my reacquaintance with terra firma had been advanced significantly, and that this precipitate meeting was likely to be uncomfortable in a very short space of time.

I was finally able to get my canopy to deploy as it should have first time, and pushed my helmet back to its rightful position.  Vision and sound restored - ground waaay too close!

As I listened to the ground crew laughing, I heard one say, ‘I haven’t seen a twisted bunch of bastards like that in a long time!’  I was happy for them - but aware that the sensation of ‘ground rush’ was upon me.

I had virtually no time to steer myself to the airfield to land, but managed what I thought was a magnificent feet-together roll without injury in a field nearby.

I collected my canopy and walked through a gap in the hedge, and knelt on one knee (as trained) to let a small aircraft take off the runway, letting the pilot know I had seen him and was not about to walk in front of him.

I felt quite pleased with myself; I had not only finally got to jump out of a ‘perfectly serviceable aircraft’ - some folks definition of insanity - but had also managed to survive a potentially lethal complication.  It’s called ‘candling’, - God knows why.

I think Sheila and the girls, who were watching, were quite relieved to see me striding across the turf back to the control shed.  To this day Sheila swears I landed in the hedge.  It’s not true.

Philip+