The Tweet

The second phase of training was the T-37 or Tweet.  It required parachute and ejection seat training before we started and flying.

The Tweet is in the foreground and the White Rocket in the background.

We had to learn how to fall.  First it was just standing and falling down then it was standing on a platform and jumping off and falling correctly.  Then we just hung around...

And we learned how to fall with our parachute harness on.

Then we para-sailed behind a pick-up truck with a very long rope... OSHA wouldn't go for that now.

They decided it was too windy after I got blown around and landed flat on my feet... jamming my back and giving me severe back pain for 6 weeks.  Im trying not to wince in this photo below.

Jimmy Huard getting dragged behind a truck... practicing a disconnect from a parachute dragging you through the cactus.

In addition to parachuting we had to learn about oxygen deprivation (hypoxia) and pressure changes since we were now going to fly up to 25,000 feet in an unpressurized T-37.

We were trained in a Hyperbaric Chamber.  They actually let us experience hypoxia and a rapid decompression.  The flight surgeon told us if you have trapped gas in your body let it go, don't hold it.  You could bust a gut.  I actually know a guy who busted a gut in the airlines... very serious... it took him about a year to get back to flying after that.  

You haven't lived until you have been trapped in metal box with a bunch of beer drinking, mexican food eating Yankees when you have a rapid a decompression!!  100% oxygen is required after that!

Check out the helmet and nose hose... oxygen mask... it's up in my attic today... still.

Instructors had been know to grab a students nose hose and shake it hard if he was messing up... not mine.