An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir Dec 2019/Jan 2020 www.dfmagazine.ie 24 | PTE EOIN O'SHEA (AR), D COY, 7 INF BN A t 4,000ft the instructor opens the door at the side of the plane and as wind suddenly swirls around the cabin I find myself in pole position, first at the door, as instructed, ready to push squarely into the wind while exiting the aircraft. Now seated on the floor, legs hanging outside, I turn to my right as the instructor shouts "Ready?!"; I keep eye contact, nod, and respond "Ready!" In the next moment, I'm gone… I had decided some months earlier to travel to Teuge, Neth- erlands, to complete one of very few European courses run specifically for ex- or current military personnel. Located near the town of Apeldoorn, Skydive Teuge operates a military static- line course, which has been undertaken over the past 40 years by those personnel – Dutch or otherwise – wishing to complete ground school and five subsequent jumps. They do this both for personal enjoyment and in pursuit of their 'wings' (the emblem worn by those who've completed the minimum requirements for airborne personnel). Static line refers to the method of skydiving whereby the chute is automatically deployed shortly after exiting the craft. It effectively removes any real period of freefall, while still requiring the skydiver to manoeuvre their flight and land. Static- line skydivers exit the aircraft at only 4,000ft compared with 10,000-12,000ft for their freefalling peers. Having arrived the first morning, following a stay in a hostel in Amsterdam, I joined the group: five in total, with all the oth- ers having French military origins. They included Yoad (a 19-year- old Air Force attack-and-search dog handler), Iljak (a 63-year-old Croat ex-Legionnaire), Phillipe (an ex-paratrooper, also in his 60s), and Olivier (a 51-year-old former Naval NCO). Our lessons consequently took place through both French and English, al- though the group composition favoured the former. Suddenly I wished I had paid more attention to French in secondary school! The entire first day focused on ground school, which involves detailed introduction on the equipment used, basic principles of skydiving, and also the proce- dure for deploy- ing your reserve chute if the pri- mary fails for any reason. This latter, somewhat nerve-tingling, aspect of the training reminded me that while skydiving may be quite safe statistically, the potential for chute failure warrants a full day of procedural training. We repeatedly rehearsed the procedure to follow if the unthinkable happens and yelled our way through a series of checks to make after falling from the aircraft: (1) 'Count! 1001, 1002, 1003'; (2) 'Check! has the chute deployed at all?'; (3) 'Is the chute square?'; (4) 'Are you flying straight ahead?'; (5) 'Is there a tangle/twist in the chute?' (If so, bicycle kick and try to untangle 24 |

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