A team of parachutists won their "French Wings" when they swapped the grey clouds of West Yorkshire for sunnier skies above the Mediterranean coastline.

But the men from the Territorial Army's Fourth Battalion Parachute Regiment in Pudsey said jumping out of French aircraft was even more hair-raising than usual.

During the two-week exchange visit at a base in Caylus, near Toulouse in southern France, the Pudsey-based battalion undertook a series of exercises and jumps.

However, they found that the French parachutists did things a little differently from the RAF. Speaking from Toulose, parachutist Paul Devine, 28, said: "When we fly with the RAF, when the bell rings in the plane then an officer there pushes us out one at a time in sequence. Over here, when the bell rings there is a mad rush for the door and it's every man for himself. It seems pretty dangerous."

But the Pudsey squadron made a lot of new friends on the trip.

"We have been getting on really well. I have been really surprised," said John Hudson, 18, from Allerton, Bradford.

"I have been doing my best to try to speak as much French as I can."

He was delighted to win his "French Wings", the badges that French parachutists wear on the sleeves of their outfits.

Captain Bruce Radbourne, agreed that the exchange visit - which will see the French return to England later this month - had been "an excellent success".

He said: "The French have looked after us very well. It is nice that we all got on with each other.

"Some of the lads have found it an eye-opening experience to see how the French operate but they have a different culture to us. That is what we have come over here to see."

"But we have always thought that the RAF were the best in the world."