How to open the Skyvan door (was: lazy skydivers)

[billvon 2,473]

It was pointed out to me that some people don't know _how_ to open the skyvan door, and thus have a (perfectly rational) fear that they won't know how to open it on jump run and thus look like bumblers. Presented here, therefore, is how to open and close the skyvan door:

To close:

Take two people. Lean out and grab the door handles, one on each side. Lift it a fraction of an inch, just enough to take the pressure off the latch. The person on the right side of the aircraft then reaches out and opens the latch on the bottom surface of the door. This frees the door to move.

Both people then lower the door. When it gets near the bottom, both people step on it to put it into its latchable position. The person on the right then bends over and flips the latch to the locked position.

How the door moves depends on how it's sprung. The Arizona skyvan has a big bungee cord, so it likes to stay in a half-open position. You have to lift it to get it fully open, and push on it to get it fully closed. The Perris skyvan has spring reels that require much less force to move; it's easy to do with one person.

Note that it's pretty important to close the door before takeoff since a significant amount of the lift of the skyvan comes from its body; keeping the door open significantly reduces climb rate.

To open:

First off flip the little plastic gap door out of the way if so equipped (some have it, some don't.)

Both people lean out and put their feet on the door to relieve pressure on the latch. This takes only 10-20 pounds of pressure. The guy on the right leans over and flips the latch to the open position. Note that you will not fall out even if do something dumb since the door is still between you and the sky (and you're standing on it.)

Both people then release the door, letting it rise a bit (how much depends on which aircraft.) Both people then grab the handles and lift the door to its open position, and the person on the right flips the latch to the closed position. Last time I checked both skyvans had stops so you didn't have to fiddle to get the latch pins in, you just lift the door until it stops and flip the handle.

Make sure the door is fully latched open so it doesn't come banging down on the group in the door, an event sure to make you unpopular.

[weid14 0]

door latch on the right as looking towards the cockpit, right....

[hohonukai 0]

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It was pointed out to me that some people don't know _how_ to open the skyvan door, and thus have a (perfectly rational) fear that they won't know how to open it on jump run and thus look like bumblers.

Bumblers?

Seriously, thanks for the education! Never jumped a Skyvan (yet!!) and that will come in handy.


Granma said that when you come on something good, first thing to do is share it with whoever you can find; that way, the good spreads out where no telling it will go. Which is right. - The Education of Little Tree

[IronMike 0]

I just ask the pilot to do it every time.

[Rdutch 0]

You might have gotten your left to right mixed up the handle is on the left (Unless) Im sheltered and have only jumped 1 skyvan and its different. Which might be the case but the handle is on the left in the Deland skyvan. Either way good post. Most of my jumps are video and it gets to be a pain when you have to get someone to open the door so the visiting team your filming can exit. And I cant do it with my wings.
Ray

Ray
Small and fast what every girl dreams of!

[PLFXpert 0]

I was thinking the same thing, Ray.

I like this thread, though. I can't tell you how many times I had to walk from the front of the plane and scoot pass all the other jumpers b/c no-one in front of me knew how to open the skyvan door. The one guy I asked to help me on the right side, while I latched it, looked as if he thought he was going to fall out or something. Geez, that would have been scary if that happened. Ha ha ha!

But hey, it's understandable if you don't know how. I feel, though, that if you don't know how to do something, offer to help or watch so next time, you'll know. But, ha ha ha, then again, I've watched how people spot and tried to spot several times and I still don't know if I do it right. But that's, a different thread, altogether.

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[freeflir29 0]

Poor Jessica........"It's all the drama with the door. It makes me nervous!!"
She had me laughin my ass off with that one....

[Jessica 0]

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Poor Jessica........"It's all the drama with the door. It makes me nervous!!"

@!#%@#^% WELL IT DOES! I'm trying to switch to my "verbal brain" over here and there's all this yelling and banging and crashing right in front of me! It was like being in the dz.com tent!

Anyway, as PLFXpert said in the other thread, skydiving is about facing one's fears, so the next time I jump a skyvan I will hop up and down on the door myself.

So y'all go fu -- I mean, so there.

Skydiving is for cool people only

[PLFXpert 0]

Right on, Jessica. Ha ha ha.

For me, I only have one fear in the world, and that's being old and not being able to take care of myself. Other than that, bring it on! You have no control over when will be your time to go (no matter how you slice it) so don't be afraid to do or try ANYTHING until then.

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[freeflir29 0]

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so don't be afraid to do or try ANYTHING until then

Be careful with this ideaology at the WFFC. There are just some things you should be VERY afraid of. However, none of it killed me.........

[PLFXpert 0]

Ha ha ha. Well, I believe fear is a lack of faith, whether it be religious, or just faith in yourself. There is a difference, however, between being fearless, and being stupid. For those that don't know: crawling slowly across a busy highway=stupid. skydiving=fearless, or at the very least, conquering your fears.

When I was a little girl I would make myself face my fears. If I was scared there was a monster under my bed, I would get out of bed in the middle of the night, and crawl under it just to be sure. When I was scared of the dark, I walked from one end of my house to the other w/out turning on a light, to prove to myself there was nothing to be scared of. I've just always been that way. If something causes my nerves to rise, it makes me want to do it even more to prove to myself that it's no big deal. Believe it or not, skydiving never brought my nerves up. I was always 100% relaxed when I started. But lesser things in life, have brought my nerves up and I just go after them. There's nothing wrong w/ that. When someone is scared of something as simple as the skyvan door, all it takes is a little push to show that person, it's really just no big deal.

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[diverdriver 5]

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Be careful with this ideaology

Who are you and what have you done with Clay?

LOL....j/k man.

Chris

[freeflir29 0]

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Who are you and what have you done with Clay?

Hehehehee...dude....If you spent a week in a Boogie induced haze like I did. You might feel the same way. The first thing I did when I got home was ....Sleep....for 13 hours. Then got up for a couple hours. Then took an hour and a half nap. Then unloaded my jeep, did laundry, took a shower, emptied out a couple hundred emails, then took another nap. I made it to the gas station so I could get to work today. I actually made it to work today but I swear I hope I feel "normal" again soon. I still can't really see straight..... Maybe I'm getting old but I have just discovered that there is such a thing as "excessive" partying. Not that it will make any difference next year....my current state will be long forgotten.

[FliegendeWolf 0]

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There is a difference, however, between being fearless, and being stupid. For those that don't know: crawling slowly across a busy highway=stupid. skydiving=fearless, or at the very least, conquering your fears.

I'm going to nitpick, here. I would argue that fearlessness and stupidity are much more related than that, although I do agree they are not the same thing. However, fearless does NOT mean courageous.
If you are fearless, than by definition you have no fear. Fear is a very useful (if sometimes unwelcome) human quality - in many cases it is fear that keeps us out of danger and thus alive, no? Therefore, being fearless actually means that you are deficient in the instinct of self-preservation.
Courage is the ability to function in the face of fear (you demonstrated courage, not fearlessness in crawling under your bed looking for monsters, because you actually were afraid of them). In order to be courageous, one cannot be fearless. As you put it, if skydiving is conquering your fears, then skydiving is courageous. I recognize that you were never nervous about skydiving, but you do write that other things in life have brought your nerves up, so I argue that you are not fearless.
The good news is, I think it is far better to be courageous than to be fearless.

A One that Isn't Cold is Scarcely a One at All

[Meatbomber 0]

We operate a Skyvan and we try to give everyone new to juming from a Skyvan a little checkout on how to open and close the door...

what i don't understand is those people who either fear opening the door and sit right by the latch or those folks who are not interested in how to operate the door... they ever heared the word EMERGENCY ?

[christoofar 0]

If it was an emergency, I'd lift the door high enough to get the hell outta there!

Seriously, the Arizona skyvan was fun to jump out of while it was @ the WFFC... the exits were so much more fun to do than the Otter... at least it made the piroette exits much easier to do.

I was doing twist exits the whole convention, where you hug yourself into a twist which eventually goes into a headdown-spin. Then, just bring those arms out and your spin slows down to a neat little stop. Looks cool on video!

____________________________________________________________
I'm RICK JAMES! Fo shizzle.

[PLFXpert 0]

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in many cases it is fear that keeps us out of danger and thus alive, no?

.

No, I think that's intelligence/common sense. But whatever you want to label it, doesn't matter. I wouldn't say I'm fearless, but I would say I have never had a fear I haven't conquered.

Fear, as you say, has never saved my ass. My brain has.

I think we are making similiar points though, just using different labels.

[FliegendeWolf 0]

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I think we are making similiar points though, just using different labels.

I think you're right. It was a semantic difference more than anything tangible. Keep on conquering!

A One that Isn't Cold is Scarcely a One at All

[billvon 2,473]

>they ever heared the word EMERGENCY ?

That's an excellent point, and opening the door quickly in an emergency varies from aircraft to aircraft. The Eloy skyvan (and one based on the East Coast that I forget the owner of) has a gap wide enough to squeeze through once the plastic half-door is opened; in an emergency, you can either jump through it (and risk hitting something) or just roll out through it.

The Perris skyvan now has a door extension that prevents this. In an emergency I'd kick the handle open, raise the door a few feet and bail out.

In both cases, if time permits (i.e. engine out at 4000 feet) it's probably better to open the door normally and go.

[peek 20]

Oh, yeh, love that Skyvan door! NOT!

At the WFFC I had to operate it almost every time I was
on it because my organized loads were big emough to be
out first.

My big fear is dropping my helmet or goggles out
the door when I am fumbling with them on jump run,
since the Lexan door was almost always left open.
But this year all I lost was an earplug.

Big tip is to read the instructions- use two people
because the door needs to not be twisted, and also you
need to move the door back and forth a bit to find
the slot for the pin to go into.

[PLFXpert 0]

geez, sounds like more troulbe than our skyvan in deland.

We also have a plexi glass door that folds over to cover the foot-wide opening at the bottom where the door does not close all the way.

[wildblue 4]

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You might have gotten your left to right mixed up the handle is on the left

Bill said "The person on the right side of the aircraft"
Which would be your left if you're in the plane looking back at the door. So you're both saying the same thing? Or are they different?

Kinda like the front of the plane is the back to us :)

it's like incest - you're substituting convenience for quality

[billvon 2,473]

>Bill said "The person on the right side of the aircraft"
>Which would be your left if you're in the plane looking back at the
>door. So you're both saying the same thing? Or are they different?

Correct. Aircraft right is always the pilot's right. If it wasn't, spotting would be a _lot_ harder.

[wildblue 4]

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Correct. Aircraft right is always the pilot's right. If it wasn't, spotting would be a _lot_ harder.

"5 uhhh... .... .... north-west-ish!!"

I knew what you were saying Bill, it was the other guy that said "left" without giving an orientation.

it's like incest - you're substituting convenience for quality

[billvon 2,473]

>"5 uhhh... .... .... north-west-ish!!"

True story -

Right after Perris got the Skyvan, Tom Allen was lying on the floor trying to spot it. They turned onto jump run, and he said "5 right!" The pilot turned 5 right. "No, right, 5 right, 10 right damn it!" He stood up, then immediately realized what he'd done. "Uh, my right - your left. 10 left."