Airborne!

My little rule of thumb about spider and snake chimera's weight introduced a problem.

Spellborne troops are still paratroopers.

The max load for a T-10 parachute is 360 lb.

My spider is a svelte 320 lb. buck nekkid.

So he can jump in a 2.3 lb. uniform with a 12 lb. reserve chute and have 25.7 lb left over for gear.

If he were a normal human he'd have 185.7 lb. left over.

Traditionally the Army would declare these chimera unfit for airborne operations due to weight, but there's strong pressure from higher to fully integrate the services.

Chimera WILL be no different from other ethnic groups OR ELSE!  

And with a Secretary of Defense like MacNamara issuing such diktats, the Army figures out a way to make it work.  And they hate every moment because they're accommodating a very small percentage of the troops.

Happily, there's already a canopy in service they can use!

The G-14 has a max load of 500 lb.  They're going to have to make a spider and snake specific harness anyways, so a cargo chute might be easier to adapt.

That'd allow for 140.7 lb of gear with the larger 37 lb. reserve chute.  That's probably acceptable to the Army to get the politicians off their backs.