FJ Parachutes

[Cutaway]

I remember watching a documentary about the FJ landings in Crete and footage of them landing. I noticed thier parachutes were hard to control as the FJ was hung from his back. Does anyone have info about the Parachutes the FJs jumped with?.

[grndevil44]

Hello

The chutes the Fj used were RZ16's and RZ20's if you search the threads for these two you will find some more info on them, I think the falling rate is around 15ft per second?, someone might be able to tell you for sure on this though and I agree they dont look to have much control over how they fall and in a few films I have seen the landing looks very hard, the only control they have as far as direction is to do with movement of the legs I believe, as you might see them do in the origional films (a few on youtube), they are not like the modern parachute where you have hand controls to make turns and slow down the decent before landing, I wouldnt fancy jumping with the fj chute, but it goes to show these were young and brave men

Hope this helps

Thanks

John

[Gran Sasso]

At Kreta they used the RZ1 and RZ16.

Hello

The chutes the Fj used were RZ16's and RZ20's if you search the threads for these two you will find some more info on them, I think the falling rate is around 15-20ft per second?, someone might be able to tell you for sure on this though and I agree they dont look to have much control over how they fall and in a few films I have seen the landing looks very hard, the only control they have as far as direction is to do with movement of the legs I believe, as you might see them do in the origional films (a few on youtube), they are not like the modern parachute where you have hand controls to make turns and slow down the decent before landing, I wouldnt fancy jumping with the fj chute, but it goes to show these were young and brave men

Hope this helps

Thanks

John