CF Hercules Paradrops In Windsor, ON?

Hey ATS,

Forgive once again if posted in the wrong forum but just wanted to share this.

I live in Windsor, ON and work in Oldcastle, ON (about 20 minute drive down Walker RD. to work on a bus). I work in a construction yard producing re-bar concrete precast forms for highways and bridges ect. Now, on a daily basis nothing really out of the ordinary happens, aside from the rare minor accident here and there.

However in the past 1 1/2 month on a consistent, almost daily basis everyone in the yard can observe the massive, low flying, body of a gun metal black Canadian Forces Hercules Transport craft circle the area of Oldcastle (the Windsor International Airport is about 5 mins away). Anyone who knows what the Hercules is can certainly appreciate how massive and intimidating the size of the aircraft is.

www.astraproject.ca...

Anyways, this thing circles the city at a low altitude multiple times, sometimes about 20-30 times. Doing nothing, just circling. Then finally after about 30 passes, you can see when it passes overhead the transport hatch opens and multiple (sometimes 15) paratroopers dive out of the back. Now I have a friend in the CF based here in Windsor and I have asked him about the Air forces presence on such a consistent basis recently and he has no idea what to tell me.

I've lived in Windsor now since 1998 moving from Chatham, ON about an hour away. And since 98, I haven't seen a single one of these craft aside from the air shows. Let alone in operation or training simulations involving Soldiers. Just a very curious situation and looking for a few answers.

Cheers ATS

Could be just the airforce and army are practising parachute jumps, the reason for circling might be for the jumpers or air crew waiting for the drop zone to be cleared of cloud and what not ? Just my guess

reply to post by Protickall



A C130 Hercules is small. Want massive? Look at a C17. Want mind blowing? C5 Galaxy or Antanov.

CF Hercs are a dull grey. Looked so much better when painted in cam.

The "transport hatch" you are talking about..... not sure what you mean there. They could be jumping out the back which is where the ramp and door is, or they could be jumping out the para doors located in the rear of the plane on each side.

reply to post by Protickall

They are getting you canucks ready for warfare in the streets too.

Good luck in the future, northerly friends!

reply to post by Protickall


About how far from the US border do you figure this is happening?

Many theorize that when the New Madrid lets loose, and it will be soon, Canada could see a flood of refugees from the US.

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reply to post by PlanetXisHERE


Well Windsor, ON where I live is right across the river from Detroit Michigan. I can throw a baseball from our riverfront and it would land about half the distance of the river.

Was it a large number of chutes? Was it all para's? Did you see any kind of different chutes? Is there any type of firefighting/smokejumper training bases in the area? Are there any RMCP training or headquarters facilities near there? Did the para's appear to come out of the plane at a low altitude. Cheers. Ron

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I am a 24 year veteran of the US Army - all of that time I was in Airborne units on jump status. I am both Static Line and HALO Jumpmaster qualified. I also have a civilian Freefall Jumpmaster status and license. Over 300 static line jumps and 3000 HALO jumps counting all my civilian freefall jumps. I have a few HAHO jumps as well but that is a very specialized thing and not normally performed by other than very unique special operations units in very specific circumstances.

The C130 is an aircraft capable of delivering a payload of up to 80 paratroopers in combat. In training the US military limits that number to 64 for safety and comfort of the jumpers.

I don't know what your interpretation of "low altitude" is but the C130 is capable of conducting both static line and HALO operations. Static line jumps are conducted at between 800' and 1250' agl for training and as low as 500' agl for combat. HALO can be conducted anywhere from 3500' agl which is sort of a minumum (in case of a malfunction) and up to 36,000' agl at the unclassified level.

The difference between the two:

Static line parachuting is intended for delivering a large number of troops over a large area in a rather imprecise pattern - sort of saturating the battle space like on D-Day or Operation Market Garden. There is usually no traffic pattern as the location for a drop like that is general in nature and the aircraft are very vulnerable at that low altitude. However in training if the winds were high they might abort a pass or two.

If you are seeing 15 people they can drop that on a DZ about 1000 yards long using both doors. Using the ramp about 1500 yards. Static line chutes are not very steerable at all even the fancy new ones. You can basically maneuver enough (and not always then) to avoid obstacles on the DZ.

Usually this is not done in an urban area for that reason. If you research the 2/508th 82nd ABN and their disaster at Ste. MereEglise in WWII you will see that they dropped in the town proper and most of the men got killed in the air and while hanging from buildings. A disaster.

HALO sometimes does do a racetrack which allows the pilot and the jumpmaster to confirm the exit point (which may be miles away from the DZ) to be calculated/confirmed correctly based on winds at altitude and at ground level. It is done to allow the aircraft to fly above most radar systems and allow the teams to infiltrate silently with chutes that are very steerable - a good 15 man team that stacks correctly in the air can land within 20' of one another on a building or in a small clearing and be ready for combat in 5 seconds or so of landing.

I don't know if there is a sports arena in the area but we have a sport parachuting team that jumps in the American flag during the national anthem at events. That is very few people only 2-3 jumpers and usually done from a contcract small aircraft - a Cessna or something. It is a PR thing. It would be very costly to float a C130 for a small 15 man operation BTW. Doesn’t make sense.

Usually a helicopter rooftop insertion or a helicopter fast rope combo is used in urban areas because it a rotary platform has more maneuverability and can abort more quickly if there is determined opposition.

Hope that gives you some insight - knowing the actual altitude or approximate would help.

ETA: Just reread the OP and since it is near an airport (airports are ideal DZ's btw - hard to miss for inexperienced people) and they are doing 30 passes they could be doing jumpmaster training. Allowing each one to spot the terrain features and estimate the winds while they get individually graded on their technique. At the end they all jump for proficiency. Just a possibility.