Think Survival

Remember: You owe it to yourself and to your family/friends to be found as quickly as possible after a bailout or off field landing! Don't make an already bad day worse by not have a means to be found on you.

Your troubles aren't over once your parachute gets you safely back on earth. While it is possible that you will land in the parking lot of a local pub and can recount your heroic bailout to the stunned bar patrons over a cold one, you will more than likely end up in a field facing several possible problems.

If you land in winds even as light as 6-8 knots, you might be dragged along the ground by your parachute. Depending on the terrain, this can be deadly. Your first priority is to get your parachute under control.

After that, your next goal is to be rescued as soon as possible. You may not be within walking distance of civilization and if you're injured, you may not be able to walk even a short distance or at all!

Survival Equipment must be carried on you.

If it's stored in your aircraft it's called camping gear.

        Here is where the SMAK PAK Survival Kits manfactured by:                Silver Parachute Sales come into play. SMAK stands for the "Save My A** Kit" and can be an invaluable resource after a bailout. The low-profile SMAK PAK attaches comfortably to your parachute harness and contains four tools: a hook knife, signal mirror, whistle, and fire starter. Allen Silver's Air Force experience working with survival equipment and participating in search and rescue missions has shown these items to be the most useful for pilots who need to keep the amount of equipment they carry to a minimum.

The larger kits like the Mid-Size or Deluxe also have room for

your personal locater beacon, like an InReach or Spot.

The hook knife is readily accessible, on any size SMAK PAK, from a pocket on the front of the kits and is sewn on with a 4-foot lanyard in case it is dropped. It can them be reeled back in,

if your bouncing along the ground and cannot easily get out of your parachute harness or collapse the canopy because of an injury or high winds. The extremely sharp hook knife can be used with one hand to cut a riser (where the lines are attached) which will immediately collapse the parachute. When the harness webbing is under tension, the hook knife easily cuts through it like a hot knife in butter. It can also be used as a seatbelt cutter if you can't release your seatbelts (e.g. hanging upside down, in a roll over accident).

Once you are free of your parachute, the next objective is to be rescued ASAP. If you are in a remote area you probably will be relying on search and rescue aircraft to find you. The canopies we sell with the SOFTIE line of parachutes are orange and white and can be spread out on the ground to make yourself highly visibile. This is great for someone in an aircraft looking for you.

If you want to attract the attention of an aircraft several miles away, then the signal mirror included in all SMAK PAKs is a vital tool, if you don't have a personal locator beacon.

The whistle is important if you are injured and night is fast approaching. There is no worse feeling than lying injured in dense foliage/trees and calling out to rescuers who are upwind and cannot hear you. The SMAK PAKs flat whistle has a shrill tone that carries much farther than your voice.

Firestarters can be used to create a signal fire. Smoke & fire will attract a lot of attention day or night (just be careful not to make a bad situation worse by starting a wild fire!). And if you do have to spend the night before being rescued, you have a source of heat at your finger tips. Your parachute canopy makes a great sleeping bag.

Many pilots have asked for a kit large enough to carry their Personal Locator Beacons. I offer a MID SIZE and DELUXE SMAK PAK featuring the basic items listed above, plus room for a PLB like a Spot or InReach (and anything else you can squeeze in). For pilots who desire more equipment, the SUPER DELUXE SMAK PAK is available. This kit contains a space blanket, a strobe light for night rescues, and a "pocket survival pak" which includes a signal mirror, whistle, fire starters, compass, fishing kit, scalpel blade, duct tape, aluminum foil, wire, safety pins, pencil and notepad in a compact pouch within the SUPER DELUXE SMAK PAK.

All SMAK PAKs can attach to your parachute harness in a number of ways. You decide what is most comfortable for you. The following photos illustrate the suggested locations for attaching the SMAK PAK.

                              (click photos to enlarge)