British paratroopers and secret agent made their first jump from a balloon from 1500 ft at Ringway. How did they manage to get a ballon to that heigth with some sort of connection to the ground? Was it a steel wire. And how was the ballon constructed, and was the parachuter alone there? I have read that it was more frightning than jumping from an airplane where you travel for a while with (almost) the speed of the airplane. Here they just fell straight downwards. And the agents jumped at nighttime, even more scaring.
TomJonas, This 18 minute+ video explains the parachute training regime very well (albeit post-war), including from about 9 minutes in the 'balloon jump'. Parachute Training Video 1954# The 1954 training would I imagine have been very similar to late WW2 training. As far as I know the balloon was helium (possibly hydrogen?) filled and attached to a heavy lorry which winched the balloon up and down. The balloon jump was indeed more intimidating than an aircraft jump. From a balloon the drop until the static line deploys the 'chute is vertical wheras in an aircraft drop the body falls a relatively small vertical distance, the body falling in a parabola (dictated by aircraft speed) until the static line deploys the 'chute resulting in a much smoother deployment (and presumably less stress on delicate body parts due to the harness). From early days up to (I believe) present training all qualified paras have to complete at least 1 night drop to get their wings. There will be some much better qualified people here who will add more detail - certainly a few ex-paras. Mike
Don't know where you live but if you visit Tatton Park in Cheshire (where the parachutists from Ringway dropped) you can buy an illustrated booklet for their Airborne Walking Trail which has lots of interesting pictures of balloons etc. Manchester Airport (i.e. Ringway) has , or had until recently, a good illustrated display on parachute training in one of the terminals.
I'd disagree with 1500 feet.....at Hullavington where we did our first jump in the 1980's it was 800 feet or so.....
Mark Hone! I live in Sweden so it is a little difficult, but thanks for your tip, Some day I will be visiting England again. The 1500 feet was mentioned in Ray Mears "The real heros of Telemark"
My dad told me the night drop from a barrage ballon was the most terrifying drop he did. I think they jumped through a hole in the gondola.(static line) Several blokes refused (RTU)
I have read that the steelwire was 0.3 inch (8 mm) in diameter. Is that right. Seems a bit thin to me.
