Pararescuemen perform tandem jump

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Cynthia Spalding
  • 3rd Wing Public Affairs
FORT RICHARDSON, Alaska --  Airmen from a Kulis Air Guard unit participated in a tandem jump at Malamute drop zone on Fort Richardson Oct. 21, 2009.

Senior Airman Don Lacy, an aircrew flight equipment specialist with the 176 Operational Support Flight, was strapped to 1st Lt. John Romspert, a combat rescue officer with the 212th Rescue Squadron, on a C-130 Hercules aircraft to participate in a training jump with pararescuemen. 

"You should have seen the view before jumping," said Lacy to the ground team.
Lacy, who packs parachutes for pararescuemen at Kulis, said, "I want to feel so confident that when I am packing the parachutes that I would feel safe jumping with it, too". 

Lacy has done other tandem jumps before, but this was his first jump with the Air Force using of the parachutes he packed himself. Romspert was the pilot of the tandem and instructed Lacy on the procedures and checks they would go through before and during the jump. 

Romspert does four-to-six tandems a year and has completed more than 300 jumps himself. He has done tandems for the past four years and recalls one of his most memorable was when he landed in a sunflower field in Thailand. 

"We do tandems when we're in a situation where non-qualified jumpers need to get to into an area like, for example, medics," said Romspert. 

He also mentioned that sometimes they will jump with 400-600 pound barrels strapped to them for training to simulate jumping with equipment. 

"No matter what, you will always go the same speed. It's physics," said Lacy. "The usual speed a jumper will fall is around 120 mph." 

Pararescuemen train in all kinds of terrain and with other aircraft besides the C-130 Hercules. They train jumping out of C-17 Globemaster IIIs, H60 Black Hawks, any Department of Defense jump-capable aircraft and also some civilian aircraft. These jumps sometimes occur in remote locations. If a skier, hiker or any other person or group gets stranded in Alaska and needs rescued, the guard unit at Kulis is ready. The unit trains at least once a week to prepare them for rescue support.