Miranda Boatman took a deep breath as she boarded the Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft. After two-plus weeks of training, the time had finally come.
Within minutes, the Penn State Behrend junior childhood and early adolescent education major would be more than 1,200 feet above ground. Then she would jump from the aircraft and fall at speeds exceeding 130 miles an hour.
“Once we’re in that plane, and they open that door, that’s when it gets real,” said Boatman. “There’s only one way down.”
The Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, native spent three weeks this summer completing the Army’s Basic Airborne Course at Fort Benning, Georgia. The course is better recognized by its nickname — Jump School.
“They teach you how to do a PLF — parachute landing fall,” said Boatman, a member of The Pride of Pennsylvania ROTC Battalion (which includes students from Penn State Behrend, Gannon University and Mercyhurst University). “For me, it wasn’t as bad because I’m smaller, so I hit the grounder lighter.”
The training schedule that leads to the completion of an airborne jump is significant. It’s broken down into three weeklong intervals: ground week, tower week and jump week.
Once the training has been completed, participants are expected to be able to execute jumps, deploy parachutes, land safely, pack swiftly and move to a designated rally point.