Leonor is about to do something that neither Felipe VI nor Juan Carlos I did during their entire military training.
The Princess of Asturias is training at the Méndez Parada Military Parachuting School in Alcantarilla, Murcia, to jump from an aircraft at an altitude of about 400 meters.
What’s most striking is that this wasn’t part of any official plan devised from above: according to the El Español website, it was her own initiative. Coming from the heir to the throne, that says a lot about how she’s approaching this stage.
The training follows the same program as her fourth-year peers in the Air Force: two weeks of basic instruction in automatic opening skydiving, which includes learning how to land properly, practice jumps from a tower, and, ultimately, the actual jump from an aircraft. There’s no special itinerary or different conditions.
The Royal Household has emphasized that the goal was precisely for Leonor not to stand out as a separate figure from the rest of the group, but rather to be just another student in her class. Three years of training—first with the Army in Zaragoza, then with the Navy in Marín, and now with the Air Force in San Javier—with the same focus on integration throughout.
It’s worth noting that the Armed Forces where Leonor is training are vastly different from those her father, King Felipe, or her grandfather, King Emeritus Juan Carlos I, experienced.
The current Army is part of NATO, with an international focus and a technological and tactical overhaul that makes comparing generations nearly impossible.
Princess Leonor is also the first woman in the Spanish royal family to undergo this process, a fact that in itself marks a historic difference, although the Zarzuela Palace prefers not to overemphasize it.
The Royal Household has not provided an exact date for the jump, and it has no plans to do so. The approach they’ve taken so far is to share images afterward, without prior announcements, as was the case with the F-5 flight.
So, at some point, the photos will appear, and that’s when we’ll know she’s made the leap.