Viet Nam 1967 Jumps

[nvmike 0]

Anyone familiar with Saigon Parachute Club from ARVN H-34s.

Edited May 19, 2019 by nvmike

[IanHarrop 41]

I saw this from years ago

 

[377 21]

My Vietnamese barber jumped with this club. He was a paratrooper in the RVN Army (ARVN). Their training included freefall as well as S/L.  He never made any combat zone jumps but says that there were a few ops where they parachuted into safe-ish LZs. All his SPC jumps were made from H 34 helos, no fixed wing jumps. 

Edited July 2, 2019 by 377

[377 21]

Sheridan Peterson, considered by some to be a viable DB Cooper candidate, also jumped with the SPC. His book, The Idiot's Frightful Laughter, is available on Amazon and is worth buying just for the SPC content alone. It's straight out of Apocalypse Now. Coppola should have included it in his movie. Even more bizarre than the war zone surfing he did include. 

[davidlayne 5]

On my last day in Vietnam I saw a PC over Phu Loi, that was June 1970.

 

[jim gentry 5]

I was an SSPC safety officer in 1969.  Still have the USPA card. We made a few jumps at Ap Don from a DC3 rented from Continental Airlines. During one jump I could hear an M-60 being fired.  During another an F-4 strafed something about a quarter mile across the little river that ran by the DZ.  Nothing more exciting than that.  Twice the VN Army team jumped with us. The village kids field packed for us, and several Vietnamese women from the village catered food.  VN Army troops hauled us back to TSN airbase in brand new stake bed trucks. There were 9 jumpers at the time & I had trained 4 of them (I think) & put them out on static line in the Club's surplus rigs.  I had to train a few so we could afford the DC3.  U.S. Armed forces TV featured us & filmed from the plane.  They just showed up one morning.  Scared me because I was a Seabee E-4 & hadn't asked permission from any American military sources, just the Vietnamese Army.  No one challenged us.