Tactical Air Operations, Inc. is the contracted Military Static Line and Freefall School for the United States Navy. It is located off of Otay Lakes road, in Southern San Diego. The Cadre is comprised of retired Military Special Forces from the Royal British Marines, Air Force CCT, U.S. Marine Corps, Navy SEALS and world champion civilian skydivers. The instructor staff holds all United States Parachute Association ratings and have been teaching Static Line and Freefall operations for the majority of their military and civilian careers. The instructor staff's combined total number of freefall jumps exceeds 125,000 freefalls. Never before has such an array of talent been put together to build one of the most comprehensive and successful Static Line/ Freefall programs in existence today.
The Static Line Course is 5 days long. The first 3 days consist of ground training. During that phase the students will be taught the 5 Points of Performance and emergency drills. Some of the training aids utilized during their ground training are the Parachute Landing Fall Pit, Hanging Harness for practicing emergency drills, Mock Door for exits and a zip line for more extensive Parachute Landing Falls. The students will graduate with a total of 5 jumps. All jumps are conducted at Trident Drop Zone located south of Brown Field in Southern San Diego.
The Freefall Course is 3½ weeks long. The course is broken down into 3 phases of training as well as a packing class. The packing class is taught by FAA certified Senior Riggers and the student will become familiar with the packing of their own parachutes throughout the course. The First Phase of training consists of 7 USPA Accelerated Freefall levels. The students must accomplish the required tasks of each of the 7 Accelerated Freefall levels to advance on to the military phase. The student will get 3 chances to accomplish each of the Accelerated Freefall levels. The Military phase teaches the rigging of combat equipment with a weapon, military hand and arm signals, grouping under canopy and a 3 hour class on oxygen equipment familiarization and preparing to jump with oxygen equipment. All jumps are performed at Monsoor Drop Zone at Nichols Field in Southern San Diego. The students will perform 1 slick jump, 1 oxygen equipment jump and 2 jumps utilizing combat equipment, oxygen and a weapon. The students will have a total of 4 night jumps to successfully graduate. The student will graduate with approximately 25 total jumps .
