Course Overview
Ground Week: During Ground Week, you begin an intensive program of instruction to build individual airborne skills, which will prepare you to make a parachute jump, and land safely. You will train on the mock door, the 34 foot (10 m) tower, and the lateral drift apparatus (LDA). To go forward to Tower Training Week, you must individually qualify on the 34 foot (10 m) tower, the LDA, and pass all PT requirements.
Tower Week: The individual skills learned during Ground Week are refined during Tower Week and team effort or "mass exit" concept is added to the training. The apparati used this week are the 34-foot towers, the swing landing trainer (SLT), the mock door for mass exit training, the suspended harness, and the 250-foot (76 m) free tower. Tower Week completes your individual skill training and builds team effort skills. To go forward to Jump Training Week you must qualify on the SLT, master the mass exit procedures from the 34-foot (10 m) tower, and pass all PT requirements.
Jump Week: During Jump Week students must successfully complete five parachute jumps with the T-11 parachute at 1,250 feet from a C-130 or C-17 aircraft. Trainees must run to the air field each day, conduct sustained airborne training, and then don their equipment and await their turn to jump. Prior to jumping their combat equipment each student will conduct a rigging exercise with their instructor to show them the proper rigging of their Airborne Combat Equipment. Generally, two of the jumps are "combat equipment jumps", in which the jumper carries a Molle ruck with MAWC (Modular Airborne Weapons Case), and a dummy weapon. Three jumps are "Hollywood", in that the jumper only wears the parachute and reserve. The last jump will culminate combining the combat equipment with a night jump giving the student a complete understanding of a night combat equipment jump.
Graduation is normally conducted at 0900 during the summer months and 1100 during the winter months on Friday of Jump Week at the south end of Eubanks Field on the Airborne Walk. However, if weather or some other reason delays the scheduled jumps, graduation may be conducted on Fryar Drop Zone (DZ) one hour after the last jump hits the ground.