by Jim Bates

In customary modern aviation training students learn to fly powered airplanes, gliders, ultralight aircraft, and hot-air balloons with an instructor close at hand, using the practice of instructor/student dual training

Usually first, there is an introductory ride for a student, with the student briefly getting the feel of controls, followed by ground training and continuing aerial instruction until the student is ready for solo flight.

But there is another segment of aviation activity where for the longest time-for more than 90 years of this century-someone who wanted to learn parachuting had to do it much on one's own. There were few parachute jumpers to teach others.

At the turn of this century there was only a handful of men and women who had even made parachute descents. After having been carried aloft with parachute canopies dangling beneath a hotair or hydrogen balloon, borne aloft as passengers in a basket or by other contrivance (such as a trapeze to which one tightly clung during the long rise), they manually separated their limp, uninflated fabric from the balloon when reaching altitude of choice, to float down beneath cotton or silk shapes filled with air. Actual Jumping from the passenger baskets of airborne balloons was a rare event.

It wasn't until World War One that a way was developed for a soldier wearing a harness to leap from a balloon's passenger basket to rescue himself from a collapsed or burning balloon. A heavyduty line (a Ecstatic line") was connected between an attachment fitting on the passenger's harness and the bottom of the group of canopy suspension lines of a parachute assembly securely stowed in a small compartment on the outer side of the basket. The falling jumper's weight would break a light cord used to lace the stowage container closed, suspension lines would play out until fully extended, the canopy would next play out and inflate, and the anxious observer- turned-parachutist would be safely lowered to the ground.

Many Allied soldiers, serving as military observers in ground-moored hydrogen balloons floating at altitudes up to several hundred feet, saved their lives by leaping out of aerial observation posts set ablaze or collapsed by gunfire from enemy planes. Germany, late in the war, began installing similar rescue systems in some fighter aircraft and saved several of their fast-dwindling number of pilots.

Between the two world wars, parachuting was aggressively developed by military and civilian interests. Although manually operated parachutes came to be, static-line parachuting was the method most used for both training and deploying jumpers, e.g., U.S. Forest Service
"smokejumpers," U.S. Army "paratroopers"-both products of the 1930s and 1940s.

Thousands and thousands of Americans became static-line military parachutists during World War Two (1939), and other nations also had great numbers of static-line jumpers.

When parachuting developed as a recreational activity as a sport in the 1950s, and drop zones flourished, a beginner then had someone to turn to, somewhere to go to learn basics of static-line parachuting, with the hopeful notion of continuing through a series static-line training jumps until cleared by an instructor to make freefall jumps.

But that static-line parachuting learning remained critically limited, beyond a certain point in the training. That is, at a crucial extended period of time, the student was alone!

A student went through extensive classroom teaching by a first-jump-course instructor, with lecturing, blackboard diagraming, posters, charts, even films and slides-all intended to carefully explain as much as possible about what was ahead for a student parachutist.

And there was ground instruction, with practice exits from aircraft mock-ups, seemingly endless rolling on the ground from a standing position to learn the proper way to perform a safe PLF ("parachute landing fall")-forward, backward, sideways- and seemingly endless leaps from platforms two and three and four feet high (or maybe just from an upended 55-gallon drum) - forward, backward, sideways- to learn what the thump of a landing shock would be like, and how much one could hurt his or her feet and ankles and knees and elbows if done the wrong way.

There would be practice exits-guided every step of the way by a well trained instructor- from the actual plane a student was to uses while the plane was parked on the ground, and often while wearing full student regalia of main and reserve parachutes, jump suit goggles, high-top jump boots, and helmet.

The instructor was handy throughout the climbing flight to jump altitude, even at one's side as the student was urged out of the plane's interior to stand outside on the plane's jump steps tightly clutching a wing strut, face scrunched up against prop blast, getting the brunt of the powerplant's clattering roar even though the engine had been throttled back somewhat. But that new stress was still bearable, because the instructor was still nearby.

However, the instant the student responded to the instructor's "GO!" the student was alone! watching the plane rapidly move up and away, growing smaller- having to decide if the canopy had satisfactorily deployed-having to locate an airport and a target area- having to decide what the winds were doing-having to constantly maneuver a canopy until landing-having to remember how to make a PLF.

Sensory overload was common for first-jump students and it often lasted well into a student's further training But there simply was no other way to train students to become skydivers.
Static-line training jumps continued to be the only way anyone got started in sport parachuting, and remained the state-of-the-art instruction method for many years. Students in a stressful activity continued to be alone during critical stages in their learning, particularly on a first jump.

Think of where the rest of aviation would be if there had been no dual flight training and students had to take up aircraft alone on a first flight.

In 1961 there was a young woman who had made several static-line sport parachute jumps, but whose husband decided against making any himself. He lacked confidence in his abilities when it came to the idea of parachuting. He said he was not sure he would do the right things as they needed to be done. But he added that he would probably give more thought to making a jump if there were some way two people - an instructor and a student - could be in one harness and under one canopy. Then, if he did not function, the instructor could make sure things were done correctly.

People smiled and voiced skepticism: It could not be done, there was not any way to make a harness for two people, there were not canopies large enough to support two persons, and, besides, where would the thrill be of "doing it on your own"?

Static-line jumps remained the state-of-the-art instruction method for many years. However, every now and then more thought was given to some way of providing better instruction to student parachutists. After all every other air sport had historically used instructor/student dual training.

Among experienced jumpers experimentation continued. Russian parachutists, when making exhibition jumps during breaks in competitions, often did two- and three-man trapeze acts using only one hugely oversized canopy. In military service, some U.S. paratroopers making static-line jumps rigged special auxiliary harnesses that attached to their own and carried sentry dogs on jumps.

In the mid-1970s two young American jumpers decided they might have an answer, but they were wrong. Years afterward, one of the participants in that adventurous attempt recalled: "I made my first tandem jump over ten years ago (two of us, both experienced jumpers, under an old 44-foot cargo chute). We were almost killed, and that put an end to my experiments for quite a while."

A means of two persons using one harness remained unattainable for a while yet. Then in 1977 two parachutists made the first recognized tandem jump over DeLand, Florida.

New Developments; New Possibilities

Then two later developments made it possible to give serious attention to student/instructor dual flight. First there was the "piggyback" rig-a single harness with both a main parachute and an auxiliary (reserve) parachute cleverly arranged one above the other so as to be worn on a skydiver's back. Piggyback gear was an evolutionary step in providing better gear.

Jumpmasters wanted to stop having reserve canopies in front-mounted reserves accidentally deployed while static line students made their exits, accuracy competitors wanted a bulky reserve on the front of a harness out of the way in the final stages of an approach to a small target disc, and everyone wanted some way of achieving more orderly, more comfortable deployment of reserve canopies in a malfunction predicament rather than having to first hastily turn over onto one's back into a "rocking chair" position.

A second development was the ram-air canopy. In time, it became possible to develop smallvolume, high-weight-load canopies that would readily support the weight of two persons and their equipment. A ram-air canopy (nicknamed "square," because of the appearance in flight of early models) had a much lower rate of descent, a superior glide ratio-it could be flown about much like a glider-and high forward speed could be fully "braked" to achieve a soft landing.

What came to be known as "tandem parachuting" was now possible. Many years after a husband who lacked confidence in his ability to safely parachute on his own and expressed his "two-on-a-harness" imaginative idea, it became a viable concept, one that grew quickly into reality. (The husband never made a jump He and the young woman were later divorced. Four years later she married another sport parachutist and they continued jumping for many years.)

In the early 1980s intensive effort was given to coming up with equipment suitable for an instructor and a student to simultaneously make a parachute jump. Development and testing continued steadily by two American parachute manufacturers who, for a time, joined minds and efforts to produce an idea. Later, each manufacturer went a separate way, due to philosophical differences, resulting in two systems being developed, tested, produced, and put into widespread use, with each achieving a great deal of success.

In mid-1984, the two firms (Strong Enterprises and Relative Workshop, both in Florida) each received a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) exemption from Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs), an exemption that legalized tandem parachute jumping. (Other designers are now also developing and marketing tandem parachute systems. )

Each of the first two systems resembled and performed much like the other, and each could employ a "drogue parachute" that is deployed at the beginning of freefall, thereby slowing a descent rate of about l80-190 miles an hour (depending on "pilot" and "passenger" weights) to 110-120 miles an hour, permitting softened, comfortable openings.

Each system gives a passenger hands-on experience at manipulating steering lines along with the pilot, to understand making canopy turns, and to learn how to land properly, softly, and comfortably by assisting the instructor with "braking" the parachute's forward speed.

Making an actual parachute jump can be the best way of learning what it is like to leave a flying machine because of an inflight emergency. However, it is not necessary to have an aircraft fail in order to make a "practice" jump. Making a tandem parachute jump is an excellent way of learning to "let go" of an airplane.

One of the first two systems developed provides an option to a passenger- under the control and guidance of the instructor/pilot-to actually pull the ripcord on a second jump and successively thereafter.

That parachute system-developed by Strong Enterprises, of Orlando, Florida-was used to further a bold new concept in training aviators for emergency parachuting.

Owner Ted Strong, a veteran aviator and sport parachutist, and one-time coach of the West Point Cadet Parachute Team, was appalled by the number of avoidable deaths in aviation. Strong says of tandem parachuting emergency training, "We feel that now is the time for the flying community to take advantage of this advancement in technology in order to possibly save lives. We realize that most pilots would not jump from a 'perfectly good airplane,' but sometimes in an emergency situation they should jump, yet fail to do so. Too many pilots die in plane crashes wearing a functional but unused parachute."

Strong's "aircraft pilot training" method has a skilled, certified tandem parachuting instructor fully teach a trainee jump techniques during a ground school that usually takes less than an hour to complete. Then the tandem instructor accompanies the trainee throughout the actual parachute jump.

The tandem instructor controls the entire jump, from boarding the aircraft until the two land under their single canopy-but it is the trainee (with the instructor as back-up) who actually makes a ripcord pull to deploy the parachute after several seconds of freefall. Before boarding the aircraft, based on the instructor's evaluation, and with a student's agreement, the period of freefall time can be extended beyond the customary four to six seconds used for most first-jump students.

Thus, an aircraft pilot can make a "practice" parachute jump and get a feel for what freefall is like, know what it is like to pull a ripcord and deploy a parachute, and understands steering a canopy.

Strong Enterprises, with a network of certified tandem parachuting instructors, has trained many aircraft pilots to "let go" of an aircraft when it is necessary, and taught them to have confidence in a parachute as a reliable life-saving device. For complete details of Ted Strong's Aircraft Pilot Emergency Parachuting Training Program, the firm can be contacted at:

Tandem Jumps in the Many Thousands

Many thousands of jumps have been made with "tandem parachute systems," not only in this country but throughout the world.

An owner of a commercial parachute center in Washington state has said, "Due to the remarkable research done by those in the tandem field, skydiving has finally reached a level equivalent to that of dual flight instruction. Tandem allows for true one one-on-one training and the implementation of an instantaneous instruction/performance/feedback/correction cycle. This cycle is critical in the learning process. I am amazed at the alertness of the first-jumpers as they talk, perform turns, read altitudes, and assimilate an incredible amount of information. The students have quickly learned canopy control, canopy characteristics, and how to flare for landing. I am continually awed by the system and the potential it offers its users."

The introduction of tandem parachuting brings sport parachuting both up to date and to the same level of professionalism as every other aviation activity.

General information about tandem parachuting and other training methods can be obtained from the United States Parachute Association (USPA).