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Could you survive at 16,000 ft?? When the flight stats come up on the plane screens I travel on, it usually says at about 33,000 ft that the outside temps are something like -84. I'm no expert but you'd think at 16,000 ft it would be well into the minus 30s and he was hardly dressed for survival was he??

It's perfectly normal to parachute from way above this altitude but on the subject of cold which is a very valid point; a rule of thumb for parachutists is that the temperature is 2 degrees (C) lower every 1000 feet you ascend. At 16000 feet therefore its 32 degrees below surface temps. Almost certainly below freezing except in the height of summer.

I never met any normal parachutists when I was doing it. All the ones I met were fckuing barking!!! I never got above 5000ft though.

You go to benidorm and strap yourself to the back of a boat......

Or freak winds!! Like yours on leaving home this morning.

Static line or freefall ?

Six static line, three dummy pull, four freefall.

You suprise me Sir, and there was me thinking all along that you were an accountant.

I'll surprise you a bit more. Ten of then were with the Red Freds.

How did you come to jump with the pink hatted girls then ?

They ran a course at Ballykelly when I was in Belfast. I'd already done three jumps at Netheravon so I went on their course. The RSM was Ted Lewington who got killed in the coach bombing in Green Park.

something doesn't add up here.... he says he was gonna get to 30 feet and shoot out the balloons and descend but didn't wanna chance it any higher...... F.F.S...... falling 30 feet vertically aint gonna do you much good, I can vouch for that from personal experience!

Don't know the guy, remember the bombing though. 'Another bloody chapter, in and endless civil war' as the song goes.

Their end of day staff jump was from 15,000. Ted was bellowing up at them to form up as they were doing relative. When they landed I asked one of them if they could hear Ted from down there with the wind rushing past their ears and all.

'Oh yes', he said, 'loud and clear.'

he was a noisy get like, and something of a legend to them.

The one thing that you can't explain about being under canopy is the complete and total silence. Everyone thinks of the jump and the free fall and the landing but for me decending under canopy was almost spiritual.

It certainly is. I've done some para-ascending recent times and that's almost as good. I like the way everyone thinks that when your canopy opens, you actually go up. No you thickets, the camerman is still going down faster and you slow down.

Scuba is much the same. I'ts almost silent down there.

Ever do night jumps ? Fearsome! stupid

HANG ABOUT....DID YOU 'VOLUNTEER' FOR THIS...

Says the pasty faced matlot who spends his time three miles underwater!!

you did , didn't you (shakes head) ....I don't know

Indeed yes. And it was the best bit of volunteering I ever did, there's nothing to match it.

No, never did a night jump.

Done a night DIVE though. One of the two occasions when I almost didn't come back from a scuba dive.