Warbird Information Exchange

I have seen something on the web about a group that does WWII drops in full era gear, might be worth the search.

A good example of a badly trained formation drop would be DDay

The landings took place in extremely strong wind, which made the landings difficult but also ensured the element of surprise. Landings were made on the southern and eastern coasts of the island, with the British forces in the east and the Americans towards the west.

Four airborne drops were carried out just after midnight on the night of the 9 July-10 July, as part of the invasion, two British, two American. The American paratroopers consisted largely of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne, making their first combat drop. The strong winds caused aircraft to go off course and scattered them widely; the result was around half the U.S. paratroopers failed to reach their rallying points. British glider-landed troops fared little better; only 1 out of 12 gliders landing on target, many crashing at sea. Nevertheless, the scattered airborne troops maximized their opportunities, attacking patrols and creating confusion wherever possible.

The sea landings, commencing some three hours after the airborne drops, despite the weather, met little opposition from Italian units stationed on the shoreline because the defenders lacked necessary equipment. Regia Marina, the Italian Navy, however, made several attacks against the invasion fleet with torpedo boats and submarines, sinking several warships and transport vessels, but they lost several of their own vessels while doing so.[1] As a result of the adverse weather, many troops landed in the wrong place, wrong order and as much as six hours behind schedule.[2] The British walked into the port of Syracuse virtually unopposed. Only in the American centre was a substantial counterattack made, at exactly the point where the airborne were supposed to have been. On 11 July, Patton ordered his reserve parachute regiments to drop and reinforce the center. Not every unit had been informed of the drop, and the 144 C-47 transports, which arrived shortly after an Axis air raid, were fired on by the Royal Navy; 33 were shot down and 37 damaged, resulting in 318 casualties to friendly fire.

The simplest solution when dealing with less maneuverable heavies in formation is elements of two. Formation within the element would be loose echelon (45-60 degrees, 200-300 ft back, wingman upwind). Follower elements stack 50' & no closer than 1000' in trail. 6 planes across the DZ would still be relatively quick - on the order of 12 seconds + exit time for the jumpers.

Ideally, in WWII, they would have dropped in 3-ship elements flown in Vic formation with Vics in trail & Vics of Vics. If in trail, each Vic would be 1000' back & 50' high (Vics in trail would be required for a relatively narrow DZ).

James, did you ever find it morbidly funy that such a hrrendous effort was never publisized or mad eit to the history books? We learned so much from it, and yet we were too embarassed to talk about it.

I have seen something on the web about a group that does WWII drops in full era gear, might be worth the search.

You would want to drag this out, after all. A quick drop is what youse and meese are loloking for, but the general public wouldn't see the beauty of it, methinks. And remember, if you can't find that manu jumpers, make the last three or four chutes bags of gear (dufflebags stuffed with twoels and dirty underwear) so everybody oohs and ahhs at all the chutes.

The Black Sparrow from the Great Lakes Wing, and the Bluebonnet Bell from the Highland Lakes squadron(both great groups to work with) are the only two other C-47's that I know of in the states that are static line configured.
It would be great if we could get all of these birds together.
Mark

Hi Michael,
I think you are in conversation with our XO, if not, please drop me a line.
If anybody is going to be able to pull this off, we would be the team to do it.
We have 2 jump ready C-47s, and the members to fill them.
We train and perform these types of jumps constantly.
Mark