Show notes
The Leapfrogs are the Navy's Parachute Team. This elite team of SEALs and SWCC have performed countless demonstrations around the country for millions of people. We sat down with one of the Leapfrogs to find out what it's like -- and what we found out surprised us.TRT 32:3300:22Intro: The United States Navy Parachute Team, or “The Leap Frogs,” is the official parachute demonstration team for the US Navy. As a part of Naval Special Warfare Center, the team brings together active-duty Navy SEALs, SWCC, and support personnel. They demonstrate professional excellence by performing precision aerial maneuvers throughout the US. I’m Daniel Fletcher, today, we chat with Luke Vesci, a member of the Leap Frogs, who shares with us not only his personal perspective on parachute mastery, but also insights from his 13-year career with NSW. Let’s get started. 00:59DF: Thank you so much for starters for sitting down with us. I appreciate you taking the time. 01:03LV: Absolutely, thanks for having us, yeah.01:05DF: If you just want to briefly just identify a little bit of your career and your history with the Navy, we can start with that.01:10LV: Okay. I’ve been in the Navy for 13 years and I came actually out of high school in San Diego. I joined the military, so it was very natural for me to join the Navy. I remember seeing all the helicopters flying by, and I’d actually come down and check out the training on the Strand when I was a kid cause I was really interested in that kind of thing (DF: Cool). Also grew up going to Miramar Air Show, and I remember seeing the jump teams at the air show and seeing the boats and, you know, the SEAL booth and the SWCC booth. I just remember thinking at a very early age that this was, this was exactly what I wanted to do. So, I joined the military back in 2005, and I decided at that time that I wanted to become a Navy SWCC, so what I did is I got a contract and joined the military, went to boot camp, did all the screening that was at Great Lakes at the time and went to SWCC school back in 2006 and graduated SWCC class 5-4, which happened to be the first class that we were actually awarded the SWCC designator, so SB. That was the first year SBs and SOs, SEALs, got their own designator, so that was, that was very privileged to graduate as a full blown SWCC at that time. From there, I checked into my first command, which was Special Boat Team 20, and that’s in Little Creek, Virginia. I did three good years there, deployed twice. One of the deployments was an around the world tour (DF: Wow), so we went to the Middle East, we went all over the Philippines, Indonesia, so we did what we call the world tour, and it was a really great experience, especially for a first deployment. From there, I deployed again to Iraq, and I augmented one of the SEAL teams at that time, and basically what we were doing is doing a lot of over the land mobility with Humvees and then also doing some stuff on the water using some boats that we had basically built from the bottom up as a combat craft, so that was a really interesting deployment.LV: From there, I went to, screened and selected for Naval Special Warfare Development Group, and I spent five years there. Had a great time there, did three full deployments out of Development Group. And then at that point, I’d been in the Navy for about nine years, and I wanted to kind of do something a little bit different. So, at that time, I requested to become an instructor over here on the West Coast. Like I said before, I was from San Diego, so I wanted to come back, and that’s what I did. So, I came back, I went to Advanced Training Command, and I taught what we call ‘air operations’. So, I was teaching Static Line Jump Masters school. I was also running the Navy Parachute Course, which is the free fall and static line, and then at the same time, we were doing the HRST-Cast Master Course, which is the helicopter rope suspension techniques. So, if you guys have ever seen the, you know, repelling out of a helicopter or the fast roping, so I was, you know, involved with a lot of that stuff. At that point, I got a phone call. I was up for orders to, you know, do something different, and I got a phone call from my detailer. And he said, “Hey, would you be interested in going to the Navy Parachute Team? There’s a billet open,” and I said, “Absolutely.” So, after that, it’s just been hitting it hard and jumping a lot, having a lot of fun with the Navy Parachute Team.04:14DF: That’s really cool that you’ve kind of gone full circle like that. It’s like, as a kid, you were exposed to it. I kind of expected to hear you say that’s kind of what’s like you had your eyes focused on that goal the whole time, but it’s just kind of, it ended up happening, but it didn’t seem like you’re knocking down the door like, “Now can I do it? Now can I do it,” no, just kind of naturally happened.04:33LV: It did, yeah, (DF: That’s pretty cool) and my parents were not happy that I ditched college to join the military (DF: Yeah, well), but it worked out cause I got my degree a couple years ago, so, yeah.04:41DF: Nice! So, what parts of your early training I guess and your continued training in the Navy prepared you to safely perform such dangerous maneuvers? I know that’s a big question, but maybe if you could touch on tying that back cause obviously some things are different.04:58LV: What we do, it is perceived as being fairly dangerous, and it definitely can go wrong very quickly if you are not confident, and if you’re not trained well, so that’s the only way I can say it. A long time ago, someone told me, they said, “There’s a big difference between being dangerous and being unsafe.” So, in Naval Special Warfare, I mean almost everything we do is dangerous, but, you know, we have the training, we have the risk management that makes it not unsafe. So, there is a difference there. What I would say was growing up, I was very active in sports. I was what you would, might call an adrenaline junkie (DF: Yeah), so I kind of always had some knack for being in dangerous situations and handling myself in fear of danger or injury, and then basically, when I joined the military, the military kind of shows you how to take a wrap off, fall back on your training in order to be, dangerous but not unsafe. So, with our job and the Leap Frogs, you know, yesterday we knocked out seven jumps in one day, and we were doing these very complex formations, but, you know, it all starts with the first day of training when we check on the jump team, and we just start from the very, very basics, and then we build from there. So, you know, in case anything does go squirrelly, fall back to what you know, take a wrap off, let’s figure it out and then try it again.06:19DF: When you say take a wrap off, what do you mean by that?06:21LV: Taking a wrap off, what we call is a tactical pause. So, in the worst of situations, there’s always a time for a second just to hesitate and just think, let’s take a look at what’s going on, reassess and then hit it again, you know. You’ve probably heard that hesitation kills. That’s also very true, but also reacting too fast in a situation can also, you know, get you hurt or killed, so we call it the tactical pause. So, hey if things are going, very fast, moving quick, maybe things are kind of falling apart, take a quick second to look around, you know, check out your surroundings and then act on that new observation.06:56DF: You said something about confidence. Was that developed through the extensive amount of training that not only you received but then gained, or talk a little bit about that piece of it?07:06LV: Definitely, so I think confidence is, it’s something that almost defines a very well trained warrior, or for that matter, a very well trained sailor or a Leap Frog. When you go through the paces of training, and you go through those building blocks, and you prove to yourself, and you prove to your team that you can, do these types of things, inherently confidence just comes. You don’t just walk on the jump team and just have confidence on day one. You know, it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of practice, and then, like I said, once you’ve kind of proven to yourself and then you prove it to your team, naturally you kind of have that confidence to know, “Hey, I’m doing the right thing,” or, “I’m doing the wrong thing. I need to adjust, and correct,”.07:47DF: Obviously, there’s a tremendous amount of planning that goes into what you guys do whenever you’re doing a jump for the public. (LV: Right) We’ve talked with people in the past about the importance of visualization. Can you walk us through the self-talk and visualizations that you perform when you’re preparing for a jump.08:05LV: That is huge. I mean visualization comes into play really throughout anyone’s whole career, and I don’t think that you can be successful unless you actually visualize what success is. So, for us, before any jump, we rehearse multiple times. So, what we’ll do is without the gear on, we’ll just go and say, “Hey, this is what we’re going to do. Let’s walk through it, let’s talk through it, what are some considerations that might come up on this particular jump venue,” whether it’s, “Hey, the winds are looking high. The clouds are looking low. You know, maybe there’s, the crowd line has been pushed in on our drop zone,” or something like that. So once we discuss, all these types of things, we talk about what exactly do we want to accomplish here and what does that look like. Once we identify what that ideal jump might look like, then we get all the gear on, maybe we even go out to the plane before, and we actually talk through exiting the plane, where’s everyone going to be, what altitudes are we going to open up at. You know, where’s the wind coming from, how are we going to approach the landing? So, there is a ton of visualization that comes into play, and honestly, I wouldn’t ever recommend, you know, jumping out of an airplane without at least going through a couple talk throughs and walk throughs. I think those are huge.09:17DF: Is there a time in that I guess pre-jump phase where you feel that self-talk is the most intense? Like I jumped out of an airplane once, and I did an accelerated free fall class, I had to do a lot more myself (LV: Of course) than just being along for a ride, (LV: Right) and I felt like on the ride up to, to where we were going to jump, you know, in the plane, the worldview kind of narrowed down to like, “It’s go time.” (LV: Right) I don’t know if that’s the same for you, (LV: It is, yeah) or when is that? So, maybe you could kind of walk us through whenever that kind of starts to ramp up where everyone kind of is quiet, whenever you start to focus.09:50LV: For sure. No, that’s a huge, that’s a huge consideration, and we like to liven up the environment sometimes with some laughter and joking around (DF: Right) because it does just get quiet and especially (DF: Intense) before a really high pressure jump, whether it’s 25,000 people in the stadium, or whether the winds are just below the limit. You’ll definitely see the internal, you know, turmoil and the, a little bit of that fear going on. So, what I would recommend, and this is just what I do, but I like to do the rehearsals on the ground and then, again, once I’m in the aircraft, and then I shut it off. I feel that going through it over and over and over and over again, it tends to work me up more than maybe some other guy or girl doing the same thing. So, I like to make sure I’m getting in my correct number of rehearsals, and then I shut it off, and I relax, and then when it’s go time, you know, you just have to kind of have that confidence that, “Hey, I’ve rehearsed it, I know exactly what I’m doing, and we’re going to nail this thing.”10:51DF: Yeah, that says a lot about the preparation because that was where I kind of thought things are not as well planned as they, as you’d like them to be, (LV: Right) like I, you need to make a quick last minute change, but it sounds like you prepare to the point where you’re able to rely on muscle memory, (LV: Sure) and you, it becomes more automatic.11:10LV: And then one, one consideration, too, is things are changing on the ground all the time. So, we’ll be two minutes out from a jump run, and they’ll say, “Hey, the timeline’s been shifted,” or, “It’s been moved up,” and so, you’re constantly reengaging with their guys, “Hey, this is, you know, we have to make this work.” Maybe the landing direction shifts, so now our whole plan that we planned for has now been completely reversed 180, you know, so we have to basically get everyone on the same page, chat it out, “What’s the new plan?” you know, do that mental rehearsal real quick and then, “Okay, it’s go time.”11:45DF: What part of the jump requires the most intense communication?11:49LV: I would say our formations that we do under canopy are fairly complex. If someone opens up their parachute the wrong altitude, or they approach the formation at the wrong angle, or they’re in the wrong spot, that can just throw everything off. So, it’s, I would say it’s more important that everyone knows what everyone else is doing and where they fit into that piece, cause like I said, one, you know, mistake there could either be dangerous, or we just don’t want to accomplish the mission, meaning we don’t nail that formation, or, you know, we’re not coming in at the right order and landing at the right place.12:21DF: I watched a few of your guys’ videos, and, yeah, I was really shocked at the level of really hands on, like, you’re not necessarily on a radio talking to somebody. You’re holding onto them like right next to you, and you’re shouting. You’re within earshot of each other. (LV: We are, yeah) You’re right next to each other, so explain a little bit for people listening what you mean when you say formations under canopy or however you phrased it.12:45LV: Absolutely. And once you see it, it’ll make total sense, so I recommend anyone who is listening to this, go on YouTube, check out the Leap Frogs, go on Facebook, check out our Facebook page at Navy Parachute Team because we have some fantastic videos up there, but what we pride ourselves on with the Navy Parachute Team, Leap Frogs, is that we are masters of CREW. CREW stands for Canopy Relative Work. Um, so what we’ll do is we’ll exit the aircraft anywhere from 2,500 feet above the ground, all the way up to 12 or 13,000 feet above the ground, and our flagship routine is that we can take multiple people after they deploy their canopies, and we can actually work those canopies right into each other, and we can do a variety of formations. So, if you could imagine canopies bumping, guys grabbing, you know, each other’s lines, hooking feet together, you know, building a diamond formation, and then a, you know, really technical and the really fun one is called the Down Plane, where two guys actually bring their canopies together. They link up, they link their legs, and then they flip those canopies towards the earth, and they’re flying at the earth about 70 miles an hour, which we call the Down Plane. So, it’s really exciting to watch, and it’s a ton of fun to do, especially when we bring that Down Plane into a stadium. I mean it’s a real crowd pleaser. 13:59DF: Those are the times of a jump or those are the parts of the jump you say that require the most intense communication?14:04LV: Definitely, right, yeah, you can’t perform these maneuvers without talking to each other. In those videos that you’ll watch, you’ll see the entire time, we’re calling out altitudes, you know, we’re calling out ground winds. We’re saying, “Hey, this is the landing direction,” and then once the maneuver happens, you know, “Give me your arm, give me your leg, cross your legs, tighten up the grips, going into flares, we’re turning left, turning right,” so there’s a ton of communication, but like I…
Full show notes at the publisher 
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
