Piper Lance as Jump Plane?

[mrpilotman 0]

Has anyone jumped out of a Piper Lance? Any thoughts, good or bad. I have seen one once a long time ago. Thank you in advance.

[CSpenceFLY 1]

Can be done. Not ideal because of the low,close tail.

[riggerrob 558]

Similarly, I jumped out of a Piper Cherokee Six a long time ago. The 'Six is just a Lance with fixed undercarriage.
Before jumping, remove the cargo door and adjacent baggage door.
The biggest difficulty is kneeling down low enough to spot past the wing flaps. Most 'Six jump pilots prefer to drop a notch or two of flaps on jump run. My guess is that lowering flaps puts the horizontal tail a bit higher, reducing the incidence of tail strikes.
If you plan to use it on a regular basis, install a supplemental floor, level with the door sill.
Forget about installing floater handles, because that puts cameramen too close to the horizontal tail and vastly increases the risk of tail strikes.
A few other DZs tried operating Cherokee Sixes, but none seemed able to turn a profit. I doubt is any DZ would be able to turn a profit after paying for maintenance on the retractable gear on a Lance.

In conclusion, Lance might be okay for the occasional demo jump, but I doubt if it would be as profitable as a Cessna 206 in the long run.

[howardwhite 4]

In addition, the Cherokee Six absolutely falls out of the sky if you have floaters outside. And it's likely that a floater will put a foot on the flap.
That said, I've seen pictures of a DZ in Europe using a Cherokee Six with an external jump step.

HW

[councilman24 36]

in a word, sucks.


Of course anything you CAN get out of is better than something you can't. Hmm, new thread.

I'm old for my age.
Terry Urban
D-8631
FAA DPRE

[rdufokker 6]

We used a Cherokee six, a porter and a twotter, to try the NC record 36 way at Smithfield, NC in May of 1983. 4 of us in the six left 40 minutes before the porter to get to 12,500. Door off, cold, long ride. It sucked!!!!

Burke Schnedl

Irony: "the History and Trivia section hijacked by the D.B. Cooper thread"

[MajorDad 0]

We tried a Cherokee 6 as a second aircraft a long, long time ago. It sucked for the reasons stated above.

Blue ones,

Major Dad
CSPA D-579