I was entertained this morning by a helicopter doing drop tests. A Super Huey hoisted a series of boxy objects a few thousand feet up, and then dropped them. Article would free-fall about halfway, then a chute came out.
The helo returned to the airport where it would hover while the next article was attached, then fly a slow corkscrew climb to drop altitude.
I drove to the airport and had the pleasure of talking with a ground crew guy. The boxes were weights for testing the chutes, about 2500 pounds each.
I watched number six of eight drops from the airport. That one failed to open, made a crump sound when it hit dirt. What surprised me is how loud the chute was. A good open gave a robust whoosh whump sound. The failure made a loud fabricky roar. Guy said “let’s see what they wanna do now.” They lifted and dropped the remaining two. Those opened.