FORT BENNING, Ga. - Ever stick your hand out of the car window as you're barreling down the highway' That's the feeling you get over your whole body when you jump out of an airplane, said SSG Kyle Seamans, event coordinator and assistant team leader for the Silver Wings.
"It's a blast," said Seamans, who joined the team a year ago while serving as a black hat. "Whenever you look at the ground from that height, it looks like a TV. It's just kind of surreal."
Making the team
Seamans is one of 13 members who make up the Fort Benning command exhibition parachute demonstration team. To jump with the Silver Wings, a Soldier must have at least 200 jumps and earn a C license.
The first seven training jumps a paratrooper makes with the team are just to get used to accelerated free-fall, Seamans said.
"Two instructors take you out of the airplane and will hold on for the freefall, about 60 seconds," he said. "After the third jump, you go to one instructor. Then you go to jump on your own. I enjoy it. It's almost like swimming. To move right, you dip your right shoulder. You steer with your body."
Jumps are made from anywhere between 2,000 to 14,000 feet. Depending on the person's weight, the fall can be as fast as 200 mph, slowing to 25 mph once the parachute opens.
The 193 intermediate jumps between the seven initial ones and the 200th which qualifies a Soldier as a demonstrator are about perfecting technique, Seamans said.
"It's because you're landing so close to the crowd," he said. "You have to know you're going to land on the target and not on the people."
A look backward
The Silver Wings, so called for the Airborne wings pinned on paratroopers upon graduation, date back to 1965.
The demonstration team originally grew out of the post Sport Parachute Club, founded in 1958, said MSG(R) Dale Warner, team leader.
At first, team members performed primarily at regional military events. Now, however, they have jumped into sites from California and Maine to Normandy, France.
Except for a four-year hiatus ending six years ago, the parachute team has remained steadily active, averaging 95 demonstrations every year, Warner said.
Mission minded
Silver Wing team members support a variety of events, including football games, Independence Day celebrations and air shows across the country. They spend about half their time on the road.
"The team does some great things," said Warner, who first jumped with the Silver Wings in 1995 and now has completed more than 2,000 jumps.
"Our primary mission is to conduct parachute demonstrations in the public sector and for military events, representing the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment, the Maneuver Center of Excellence and the U.S. Army," he said. "Of course there's the skydiving aspect of it, which is fun, but it's a lot of hard work to get your skills to where they need to be to do demonstrations."
Recruitment is also a big part of what the team does, Warner said. After a jump, the team members always are on hand to talk with people and answer questions. A demonstration jump can be a force multiplier.
More than just Airborne
One of the team's most recent additions, SGT Rachel Gadell, a flight medic attached to the Warrior Training Center, joined as a part-time team member in December. She travels with the team, when her schedule allows, as ground support and spends every weekend she has off training, working toward the goal of 200 jumps to earn her C license.
New to Fort Benning, Gadell said she hadn't heard of the Silver Wings before they jumped into her Airborne graduation last October.
"I was like, 'Wow, how do you get to do that'' They just looked really cool," she said. "They came out in formation, and I felt like they took Airborne to a whole new level."
At nearly 150 jumps, Gadell is far beyond where she was at graduation.
"Airborne (School) gives you an idea of getting out of the airplane, but the Silver Wings gives you an idea of how to actually fly," she said.
"While getting to that next goal is physically demanding and requires discipline, the rewards that come from learning to perform a successful demonstration jump are of the utmost sense of pride and personal confidence. It is both an honor and privilege to be on the team."
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