Irish Amy Parachutists

BrianD

I was leafing through a copy of An Cosantoir today and noticed an article about parachuting in the Defence Forces. According to the article, parachuting has gone from a "sport" within the forces to an official military operation with military kt being purchased.

It seems that most of the jumping is out of the A139 helicopter. Do they use the CASAs at all for this type of activity?

cork1

i wa also reading this today.its an interesting subject alright

diverdriver

Yes indeed they do use the CASAs. There are photos extant somewhere. I know a couple of guys who have jumped from it. Some great stories too, not suitable for internet publication.

boneless

diverdriver wrote: »

Yes indeed they do use the CASAs. There are photos extant somewhere. I know a couple of guys who have jumped from it. Some great stories too, not suitable for internet publication.

I have heard a few of these tales as well...

I remember one day, sitting in the car near to Baldonnel, watching a stick of guys jumping from the CASA. I don't know if it still happens over the field though. This was ten or so years ago.

cushtac

I don't think they use the CASA all that much for parachuting. Its a maritime patrol craft & much of the space inside is taken up by the neccessary equipment, even the ramp has the emergency rafts & flares connected to it.

Steyr

AFAIK the CASA is mostly used for jumps by the ARW but they use whatever is capable of doing Para Ops, and i think its just the EC135's and AW139's that the Regular Army use.

diverdriver

I know of one RDF guy who has jumped from the CASA.

bleedinrapidbud

cushtac wrote: »

I don't think they use the CASA all that much for parachuting. Its a maritime patrol craft & much of the space inside is taken up by the neccessary equipment, even the ramp has the emergency rafts & flares connected to it.

They always use the casa for parachuting but their a heap of junk-they need 2 new ones badly!!!!

cushtac

bleedinrapidbud wrote: »

They always use the casa for parachuting but their a heap of junk-they need 2 new ones badly!!!!

When do they use it? The old course was run using the Cessna.

bleedinrapidbud

cushtac wrote: »

When do they use it? The old course was run using the Cessna.

They use it whenever someone wants to jump out of a plane .
Yeah they used to use cessna-another pile of junk but when you jumped from that you had to kind of duck under the tail or else you could get knocked out .
The 139 is the best thing they have now for parachuting-you always see them jumpin out of them!!

Stovepipe

Bud,
You're talking ****e.I used to rig the Air Corps Cessna 172s for parachute ops and no-one ever had to duck to avoid the tail.When a jumper exits the aircraft, they have to step out onto a small platform over the right-hand mainwheel, whilst holding the right-hand wing strut and then they let go on command of the jumpmaster.They will immediately fall well clear of the tail and the static-line will pull out their 'chute.No risk of hitting the aircraft, if they do exactly as drilled.........the original Casa, 250, was well-liked for jumping as it had a standard cargo bay with no obstructions and cables for mass static jumps.The ARW and para display team loved it, as it was a vast leap over the abilities of the 172s.The Maritime Casas are too full of mission equipment, both in the cabin and on the ramp, to allow the same ease of use as the old one, but it is still used, as it's better than nothing.
regards
Stovepipe

Steyr

bleedinrapidbud wrote: »

They always use the casa for parachuting but their a heap of junk-they need 2 new ones badly!!!!

Thats total bollox, they had a major refit a while back.