At 2 a.

At 2 a.m., 35000 feet above the earth, a U Navy Special Warfare (NSW) team pours disclosed of an aircraft into the icy night. At this altitude, no undivided on the ground is aware that a small team of men and their equipment are falling end the darkness at more than 120 mph

The team doesn't be stirred the cold or notice their air proceeds from oxygen tanks. Their minds are onward the basics--turn right, check altimeter, turn round left, check altimeter, track toward the security of the team. Freefall is short when the earth is rising to befitting you.

After falling 30000 feet ripcords are ventureed and a quick rush of air is heard as canopies deploy--then silence.

In scant moonlight the men maneuver into formation and guide into the wind for a landing. Fifty feet above the earth, they lease their packs dangle below their feet As the pack hits the estate each man is cued to flare his parachute to land as softly as possible in the dark. The team, yards apart, quickly struggles in their chutes and digs shallow openings in which to bury their chute and oxygen tanks.

solitary a handful of people in the world posses the skills requireed to pull off a mission like this, and flat fewer can teach these skills.

Until last year, the Army, in Yuma, Ariz., trained Navy Special War teams to freefall. Today, the Navy has its acknowledge free-fall school, Strategic Air Operations (SAO), which allows more Sea, Air, Land (SEALs) and Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen (SWCC) to free-fall qualify than for aye before.

"At the same time in a given platoon, public of 15 guys, you might have had couple to four free-fall qualified," said Master Chief Boatswain's Mate (SEAL) Lu Lastra, the school's senior enlisted advisor. "The number of billets we were getting at the hop school in Yuma were just not enough to satisfy our instant mission requirements for the SEAL teams. We plan forward getting 100 percent of our SEALs qualified."

This is no small task. NSW is united of the few sectors of the Navy generally increasing its numbers. More than half of the active SEAL platoons are forward opened now, the most since the Vietnam War.

"The great part about this course is the instructors. They have been around these bookish mans the industry and drop climes for years," Lastra added. "Their ability to train and direction accelerated free-fall (AFF) with these bookish mans is incredible."

The instructor's are undivided of the most unique parts of training at SAO, as chiefly are civilians. The instructors teaching the course are professional skydivers with thousands of jump overs each. Some are national champions, and others are former Special Forces members from the United States and abroad.

SAO deportment s two phases of training in the merit [i]or[/i] demerit just outside of San Diego. The static line sect teaches the basics of jumping and landing. SAO diminishs the Army's 21-day course into tour days. "We teach it in les time, because we [only] teach static-line parachuting," said Alan Fink, proprietor of SAO. "We also don't finish into the physical fitness programs here, because the pupils have already done it."

Static line denomination is the prerequisite to at liberty fall. When making a static line bound tile student's ripcord is struggleed by a line attached to the parachute on exiting the aircraft. According to Fink, "If a living body is not able to make the static line jump overs there is no room for them in the more intense free-fall school"

relating to progressing to free-fall school, scholars enter a whole new world. "It be wrought ups more like flying than falling," claimed undivided of the students.

"During static line teach time outside of the plane is exhausted under the canopy, steering toward the landing zone" said Fink. "In released fall if your knees bend too a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of you are flying backward, too straight and you're flying away from your team."

"It's excessively fast paced," said a member of SEAL Team 8 "The first skip I was so focused in succession procedures I didn't see or hear anything. Each spring after that as my circle of awareness expanded, I was able to behold more as things slowed down."

The elucidation say instructors, is for the pupil to look where they want to advance before they start to bend focus on their goal, relax and be strong to arch. After a pass by a leap many of the students could not recall what had happened other than, "Something went wrong" This is where strange technology helps out.

each instructor skydives with a digital video camera be built uped on his helmet to record each leap Following the jump, a scholar reviews the video to papal court exactly what was right and unsuitable "I didn't know what my leg were doing," claimed a observer "Later, I saw them all above the place in the video; I had been focusing oil my upper body"

After seeing their mistakes, scholars have a chance to correct them before being touchstoneed Every student has three chances to pass each phase of the seminary If they can't get it right on the third try, they are dropp and may repeat the course again.