The walk to the rear ramp was taken by small steps due to the ATB in bag dangling so low on the legs. A clean-front T-21 type parachute with the reserve on the back would allow the ATB bag to be held high and free the legs for easier movement to jump doors and off rear ramps. The "tail gate" jump is the ideal way to jump large loads attached to Paratroopers as the airflow is not encountered until the Paratrooper is well on his way towards canopy deployment and of course the very large opening to exit from the aircraft!
As can be seen, the ATB in its bag is swiveled by the airflow without disturbing the attitude of the Paratrooper who keeps his feet/knees together in a tight body position to create a "knife edge" for smooth descent and canopy opening sequence. The yellow static line pulls out from the pack tray's retaining bands (visible in photo above) and will open the pack tray itself, then the suspension lines will pay out with the parachute in its deployment bag still. Once all the suspension lines are extended, the ties on the deployment bag pull open and the canopy itself breaks free of the static line, elongates and inflates with air. In the next picture, you will see the canopy popping back up after filling with air. In contrast, WWII and Korean-era T-5/7 parachutes opened all at once with an opening shock that could knock the Paratrooper unconscious and were likely to have serious tangling, though they opened faster to allow jumps as low as 250 feet!
The MC1-1B canopy used for the Dark Claw jumps has now been replaced by the improved MC1-1C type (non-porosity fabric) steerable round canopy for small team insertions (SOF, LRSUs etc) while the non-steerable T-10 "Soldiers on" with its "C" and "D" models until the T-11 is fielded. American parachutes suffer from dangling deployment bags and static-lines out the delivery aircraft and should switch to drogue chute deployment like the Russian Airborne uses. Drogue chute deployment would enable high-altitude (HALO/HAHO) Airborne operations and could be modular so d-bags/static lines could be used for very low-altitude jumps.
If you look at the runway off in the distance, the first two jumpers and their ATBs/ATAC bundle are on the grassy area on the far end of the left edge of the runway.
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