Photo By Brandon Hubbard | The U.S. Army Parachute Team Golden Knights canopy into downtown San Antonio, on...... read more read more
SAN ANTONIO — The Army’s elite Golden Knights parachute touched down in parking lot C Thursday afternoon, Jan. 7, outside the Alamodome in San Antonio in their first practice before the weekend 2016 Army All-American Bowl game.
At 6,000 feet the four-Soldier team exited their UV18 Viking Twin Otter plane over the stadium, floating for about 20 seconds before opening their parachutes, performing a crew stack — aligning parachutes each other — and deploying smoke, before landing outside the dome.
The Army Golden Knights will be performing on Friday ahead of the Army All-American Bowl, which is the premier game for the nation’s top high school football players and scheduled for 1 p.m. EST Saturday.
“It was nice and cool up there, but a little warm on the ground,” said Staff Sgt. Trey Martin, a Soldier on the U.S. Army Parachute Team Golden Knights. “Think it is going to be a great show for all the American public who are coming out to see us tomorrow.”
Martin, a native Texas, had ulterior motives when returning to his home state at such a high altitude.
“San Antonio is great, but I was looking for Houston the whole time,” Martin joked, giving some love to his hometown of Houston. “I got a pretty good canopy ride, but I was looking off in the distance while floating around — nice and safe — which is exactly what we do.”
Visiting downtown San Antonio has become an annual fixture for a team with a pretty hectic schedule that includes stops at the Army-Navy college football game last fall and airshows across the nation. However, this will be the first year the team will perform demonstrations at the Alamodome.
Touching down on the hard pavement of a crowded stadium parking lot in a dense city might not be a new challenge, but it has its risks all the same.
“Attention to detail is a very important part of our job,” said Sgt. 1st Class Shelby Bixler, of Port Huron, Mich., an U.S. Army Parachute Team Golden Knights Soldier. “We go through our safety checks at least three or four times before we exit the aircraft.”
Since the team was created in 1953, it has performed in more than 16,000 events and typically travels about 270 days per year.
Bixler, a four-year team member, says jumping out of a plane never gets old, despite her jump count growing at more than 1,000. (Some Golden Knights have as many as 16,000.)
“To be able to land on target, to wave at the crowd, interact with the crowd, walk through the crowd and then, go sign autographs which is the highlight of what we do,” she said.
| Date Taken: | 01.07.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 01.07.2016 21:59 |
| Story ID: | 185817 |
| Location: | SAN ANTONIO, TX, US |
| Web Views: | 78 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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