switchbalde backup

[MR D]

when I was in an aviation unit (fixed wing) in the Army we had those pretty orange switchblades and we never issued them because we were never issued our parachutes.....

seems in testing the dummies that they used for bailing out of a Beechcraft Super King Air always got hit by the tail of the aircraft..(Hi-T) oh well, I had 50 of 'em and couldn't gime 'em away

[WBL_2006]

Benchmade Osborne Apparition "Spring-Assist"

http://www.benchmade.com/products/produ ... ?model=670

I carry one of these daily; the beauty of it is I can change it from 'spring-assist' to regular liner-lock.

Wayne

[randy]

I have seen mil switchblades, they were blaze orange in color, and about the size of an original boy scout knife, my thoughts were they might be of use to airmen to cut chute risers if they were hanging from them in a tree.

Friend of mine years ago had one left over from his AF days. The spring-opening blade was a hooked blade with the inside edge sharpened - for exactly the purpose you described. Not very practical for much of anything but its intended purpose, but it was kinda cool.

The ones that I carried had 2 blades. The hook blade for cutting risers if you were hung up in a chute, and a straight blade that worked on the switch. I carried mine in the thigh pocket of my flight suit with the hooked blade extended to that I wouldn't have to try to open it one handed.

I was told that the original design was for the hook blade to be on the switch, but got reversed and they issued them anyway with a warning about carrying them around off base.

Off topic trivia: one way to tell a fighter jock from other aviators (other than attitude) is that they will have the knife pocket on the thigh removed, it's buried under their G suit and is usless. Those of us in "heavies" still had them on our suits (If we start needing G suits on an RC-135, we got other problems!)

[Glock23]

I would highly recommend the Kershaw Blur for you. It has a spring assist. Basically, you touch the thumb stud and it flies open. Another nice knife is the emmerson wave series. A buddy of mine just got one of these, and it is a beautiful blade.

[jayman867]

Sorry don't mean to be so vocal but in Cleveland you pretty much can't carry anything. Hmmm probably why we have out of control crime here. Thompsons Find Law has codified ordinances for most cities, however I thing switchblades are banned at the state level, but I could be mistaken on that