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Bill[_12_]

Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 3/30/2020 10:44 AM, John wrote:
On Mon, 30 Mar 2020 10:28:33 -0400, "Mr. Luddite" wrote:

On 3/30/2020 9:49 AM, wrote:
On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 17:40:59 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

Today is National Vietnam War Era Veterans Day. It is a US holiday
observed annually on March 29. It recognizes veterans who served in the
US military during the Vietnam War.

A neighboring town up here has a park dedicated to to Vietnam Era Vets.

I didn't know this until a few months ago that I have
a "brick" in the park walkway.

No clue how it got there or how they got my name. A friend
of mine noticed it when she was at the park and took a
picture of it.

https://funkyimg.com/i/33uvj.jpg

===

I noticed that one of the bricks near you was for a parachute tester.
Assuming that wasn't a joke, and not knowing how they test, that must
be one heck of a hazardous specialty.

Actually it's a rating in the Navy called "PR" (parachute rigger)
but the full job title is, "Aircrew Survival Equipmentman".

A Navy pilot on an aircraft carrier (or even land based) has a
crew of enlisted people who maintain, repair and prep the
pilot's particular aircraft. One of my sons was an
Aviation Electronics Tech who maintained the avionics
on the his assigned pilots' aircraft.

A "PR" is one who packs the parachute ... checks for any
defects and makes any necessary repairs.

A pilot never wants to **** off his PR. :-)

They are a tight knitted crew though and feel responsible
for the pilot's safety.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircrew_survival_equipmentman

I would have expected a rigger section that handled the chutes for all the
aircraft. A separate rigger for each aircraft sounds like overkill. In the Army
we have one company of riggers for an entire division.

In the Navy it *is* a department in which the riggers all work
however each pilot has a crew assigned to him from within the
department. A pilot's PR may not have done any recent repairs
but he still inspects and signs off on his pilot's parachute
before each flight.

My roommate in computer school had been a Plane Captain, guy in charge of
the pilots crew. They were stationed at Moffett Field in one of the old
Dirigible hangers. The pilots would not fly the plane plane if the canopy
had been left open. The buildings had their own weather system and would
rain inside from condensation. Pilot would not fly a wet seat jet. The
parachute would freeze to the seat on ejection at altitude.

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